


Daisies

by EchoMoonstone



Series: Crown Me in the Flowers of my Soul [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Bilbo Baggins, F/M, Fell Winter, Female Bilbo Baggins, Flower Language, Gen, Pre-Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Slow Build, Soulmates, soul marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2020-06-26 03:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19759252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoMoonstone/pseuds/EchoMoonstone
Summary: Since the history of the hobbits began, they have always been there. They show up after defining moments in one's life, like the first time someone bakes or handles a garden shovel. They appear when a parent dies or a sibling is born or when a hobbit steps out into the world on their own two feet for the first time, eyes gazing in wonder at the new things all around them. Comharranblath, flower marks, are the story of one's soul, and they are never ugly.---Fem!Bilbo





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been kicking around in my brain (and my google drive) for a long time. I told myself I would start posting if I got ten chapters ahead. Well, I did, so here we go.

The marriage of Belladonna Took and Bungo Baggins was the singular most exciting thing that had happened to the Shire in over thirty years. And though the Old Took and his wife falling into the Brandywine on a particularly cold day had been frightful, it held nothing on the fact that Bungo and Belladonna married after only three brief months of engagement. Bungo's parents had grumbled a bit at the notion of accepting a Took - and an adventurous Took at that - into the family, but they had eventually given in when the bright Hobbit lass had shared with them her secret recipe to gooseberry pie, which had been the envy of all. But the sharing of Belladonna's recipe wasn't the most notorious gift during their courtship. No, that had been the smial Bungo had hand-crafted for her on some free land that belonged to the Baggins family. Many a Hobbit had witnessed his efforts of digging out the place and had marveled at his determination - it was a perfect Hobbit hole for a perfect family when it was finished. Belladonna, when she had seen the place, had momentarily sworn off her adventurous ways and promised to stay with him as long as he'd have her.  
Of course, another reason for the excitement of the match was the fact that they were _céilebláth_ , or flower matches, in the common tongue. The little blossoms, positioned directly above one's heart, had been around since before the Wandering Days. Everyone's bud looked the same until it would bloom. Not every hobbit’s flower bloomed, and a match was always cause for great celebration. In addition to the little heart flower, other blossoms cover a hobbit's body. They always show up after a defining moment, like the first time someone bakes or handles a garden shovel. They appear when a parent dies or a sibling is born or when a hobbit steps out into the world on their own two feet for the first time, eyes gazing in wonder at the new things all around them. _Comharranblath_ , flower marks, are the story of one's soul, and they are never ugly.  
And so, with a yellow jasmine above her heart and a daisy above his, they wed. Their wedding was a grand affair, backed up by the wealth of the Baggins and the hearty party going ways of the Tooks. Gandalf, the meddling wizard friend of Belladonna, had personally shown up with a firework show that wasn't soon forgotten in Hobbiton, or the Shire, for that matter. Yes, though Belladonna Took and Bungo Baggins couldn't have been more different, they had come together in such a spectacular way that even the Sackville-Baggins had been momentarily convinced to drop their very poor notions of Belladonna. Especially since it was so obvious the two hobbits were True Ones of each other's hearts. Naturally, the good feeling wouldn't last long from the Sackville-Baggins.

*****

When Belladonna went into labor, she was momentarily convinced she was absolutely going to _die_. The contractions were strong and vicious, as if the baby was trying to _rip_ it's way out of her, the cheeky thing. Bungo had immediately called the midwife and Belladonna's sister Bellamira, who had decided to stay with her younger sister through the pregnancy to help her, despite her dislike of her sisters extravagant and outlandish ways. The labor had been long and hard, and had troubled the midwife as she worked, cooing reassurance to the Baggins née Took under her care. Finally, when the halls echoed with her screams and the fire had burned out completely, a young hobbit came into the world with the rising sun of the fourth of September, 1290 by Shire reckoning. Belladonna took one look at her child and it was as though the pain of the birth had disappeared in an instant. The child was a girl, with strong lungs and a firm grip. Her eyes were honey-brown and the tops of her ears were angled so slightly more upwards, just like Belladonna's own. In that instant, Belladonna felt a shiver crawl down her spine. She looked to her left shoulder and saw a patch of moss flowers shimmering there, newly placed. Her heart swelled with love and she smiled, tears in her eyes.  
“Look,” she whispered to her True One, holding up their child to his eyes. “Look what we made!”  
His eyes sparkled in the light of the rising sun as he held their daughter for the first time, amaryllis spreading up his neck as Belladonna watched. “Our little flower. What shall we call her?”  
Belladonna thought on this for a few moments. The tradition was to name lassies after flowers in bloom during the birth, or ones that held special meaning to the family. Some even tried at guessing what the heart flower might be, though that had always been something Belladonna had despised. Who was she to decide her daughter's fate? As Belladonna gazed upon her little one, she didn't feel the pull towards those names, calling beauty and often betraying weakness. No name for her daughter like her own, _silent_ as it was. No, her daughter would get something more than stalks that bent under gentle winds, no matter how dangerous those stalks might be. She could have her own fate.  
“Bilba,” she decided firmly, meeting her husband's gaze. “Bilba Baggins.”  
Bungo smiled and ruffled her hair, sweat matted as it was. “Bilba it is then.”

****

Bilba grew with the seasons, gold-spun curls quickly growing in as thick as the Gamgee's potatoes patch. Her honey-brown eyes were full of life and trust that Belladonna hoped they would never lose. Her first word was _sunshine_ and her second _starlight_. She was crawling into every nook and cranny by the time she was one, pink marguerite flowers trailing lightly across her collarbone and down her spine as she toppled book shelves and trampled rose bushes. She squealed when her father taught her about fireflies and her mother told her bedtime stories of far-away lands and ages past. On occasion, Gandalf would show up with his gnarled staff and mirthful eyes, showing Belladonna's daughter the picture books he brought for her from Rivendell and beyond. Bilba gained her second mark then, a circlet of fern around both her elbows. This was almost unheard of. Most hobbits had only four or five in their lifetime. Belladonna realized her daughter, with her boundless energy and fascination, held her same love for elves, and she taught her Sindrian. Bungo felt left out, so she taught him too. She taught Bilba all she could think of; her understanding of maps and her secret knowledge of Kuzudul and her love of the ancient language of hobbits. Bilba was a multilingual little fiend before she was five, much to Bungo's scholarly, sage-marked pleasure.

When Bilba was four, Belladonna had another baby, this time a boy with dark brown hair and emerald eyes. Another blossom bloomed on Belladonna's skin to match the first, and she fell in love with her son. They named him Basil, because Belladonna just couldn't help but put everyone's expectation of her to ruin. But her little boy was her wish, and Bilba's. Who was she to stand in the way of the will of the Valar, especially when basil was in full bloom when she gave birth to her second. And so, their family now had two little fauntlings, a beautiful home, and an uncle Gandalf. What more could they ask for?

Unsurprisingly, soon after Basil's birth, Belladonna's wanderlust came back with a fierce passion. She began to dream of Rivendell again, with its soaring waters and pristine archways. Bungo would wake her at night sometimes, claiming that she had been muttering strange phrases in her sleep. Her friends tried to dissuade her when Gandalf came again, laden down with more books. Her lovely sister came all the way from Buckland to tell her off, citing Basil's need for her as a very good reason to stay. Belladonna relented at that, staying for her son. But when he turned a year old, she left with Bungo's blessing and headed out with Gandalf into the wild. She was only gone three weeks, and it went so well that she decided to head to Rivendell for the second time in her life. She was gone for three months that time, but she had been able to pick up another book of languages for her beautiful children. Lord Elrond had given it to her with a warning, stating that some knowledge was better left unknown, but she chalked it up to elvish paranoia. What power could a language hold besides that which all knowledge held? She had also found a bow and quiver for her little Bilba, and an etched knife for Basil. There was nothing wrong with a well-taught hobbit, after all.

*****

Bibla loved the world around her; everything from Mama's stories to Papa's books or to the great sound of wind in the trees during a summer storm. Her brother didn't like storms though, which she teased him relentlessly for. What kind of hobbit could he be if he didn't like the rain that came down to feed the Earth under their feet and make it bloom with beautiful colors of every kind? Colors like the leafy greens on her arm, or the blossoms on her collar. She tried to convince her father all the time that her pink flowers could be used as a necklace, instead of their hiding away under high-necked clothes. Her father always just chuckled and fell back on his excuse of respectability. Who needed that anyway? She turned to look at her little Basil, who was holding her hand and walking unsteadily on his fluffy feet. Bilba's own feet weren't fluffy anymore, no matter what her Papa said. She was ten years old and they were properly furry, thank you very much! She blew a stray curl out of her face and continued to drag her brother down the familiar path to the party clearing with its party tree. The other fauntlings were already there, and it was her turn to be the dragon today!  
“Billlbaaa!” Her brother whined, pulling at her hand. “What if I don't want to be a dragon? Mommy said she'd make pie today! Your hands are too scratchy!”  
Bilba sighed and stopped, turning to face Basil and ignoring the pang in her heart at the mention of pie. She had wanted to help her Mama make the dish today, but had been sent off with a pat on the head! “ _Why wouldn't you want to be a dragon_?” She asked in elvish, just to tease him. She liked to tease him, especially since he didn't have any flowers yet.  
His face scrunched up like he was going to cry. “Bilba! I don't like elvish! It's too hard!”  
She rolled her eyes. “How's this?”  
He was unamused, she could tell. “No! No dwarves! No dragons!”  
She chuckled and knelt down, feeling very grown up to be taller than someone. “Basil, it's not about being a dragon. It's about having fun as a dragon. We can be nice dragons, if you like. And besides, Mama's not gonna be done with the pie for a long time. We might as well enjoy the sunshine while it's out.” She caught sight of the other fauntlings and picked up her brother, ignoring the fact that she almost couldn't anymore. “Let's just go have fun!”  
He nodded, a new fire in his eyes for a brief moment as his displeasure was forgotten. “Okay Billy, if you say so.”  
Bilba let the nickname slide, finding it endearing. “Let's go!”  
****  
One night, when a large storm rolled through the Shire, shaking the woods and pulling down branches from trees, Basil came running into Bilba's room, the whites of his eyes showing. He knocked the breath out of Bilba when he launched onto her bed, and she nearly kicked him off. But when she looked into his eyes, her annoyance abated, and she opened her arms. Her brother leapt into them, and they sat huddled as the storm raged.  
“Outside sounds so angry,” he whispered into her hair. “Is it mad at me? Is that why I get scared?”  
“No one's mad at you,” she cooed, stroking his hair. “The clouds are just talking to each other.”  
He shook his head and trembled harder. “I don't believe you.”  
Bilba felt a lance pierce her heart at his words. He didn't believe her? It was the first time this had ever happened. Basil always believed her! She thought a moment, eyes scanning the room. They landed on a dinner knife and she smiled, leaning over to grab it. Basil sniffled at her movement. “What are you doing?”  
“Making you a promise,” she responded, pulling away from him. She drew the little knife across her palm, quickly drawing blood. Her brother gasped. “Why'd you do that?”  
Bilba held out the knife. “Do it to yourself. We'll make a blood pact. One that will keep us together and you'll know I'll never lie to you.” She had read about blood pacts in one of Mama’s books. She still didn’t quite know what they were, but she knew that they couldn’t be broken easily. Mama said the book was too big for her, but she had snuck it off the high shelf when home alone one night. Maybe her Ma would think her clever for reading it after all!  
Basil paused, then nodded before copying her movement. Bilba held up her hand, and they clasped fingers, pressing their blood against each other.  
“You'll always be my brother, Basil.” Bilba started, squeezing his hand. “As such, I'll always love you, never lie to you, and you'll be in my heart forever.”  
“Forever,” he echoed. “and you’re my sister, forever. I'll believe you and trust you and love you, like you love me.”  
Their hands glowed, and then the blood disappeared. They pulled their hands away and both gasped at the sight. In the place of the cut were identical twin flowers, a trailing vine of blue morning glory, one set on Bilba's left, and one on Basil's right, that trailed down from their palms to the inside of their elbows. They both looked at each other, storm forgotten, before rushing to the parents room to show off the new flowers. Their father nearly had a heart attack when he saw them, sleep heavy as he was, and it wasn't until later that Bilba understood why; they were only flowers after all! But unbeknownst to her and her brother that night, they had unwittingly participated in a ceremony similar to marriage. But the blue color of the flowers meant that it was a sibling's love that bonded them, not romantic.  
“You'll be able to sense one another, some times,” their parents explained that night. “When one of you is in danger or experiencing a strong emotion, the other will feel it too. It happens to all hobbits who are married and mean it.”  
“But for _céilebláth_ , the bond is stronger,” their father said. “Because your heart flower blooms for your True One.”  
“Don't ever do this again without asking us, do you hear?” their mother said pointedly, holding the forbidden book in her hands and glaring.  
Needless to say, they never did anything like that again. But Bilba couldn't feel too bad. At last Basil had flowers now.

***  
Somehow, word got out about what they had done. Bilba didn’t know how, only what came from the reveal.  
******  
“If it isn’t the flower freak and her brother!” Lobelia called out to Bilba as she and Basil walked the garden path.  
Bilba scowled and turned to face the other hobbit, hands on her hips as Basil hid partially behind her. “Leave off, Lobelia!”  
“Ooo, she wants us to go away!” the nasty hobbit smirked. “Maybe she doesn’t want to hear about what an abomination she and her brother are.” Lobelia’s friends/cronies laughed cruelly, and Bilba pushed Basil farther behind her.  
“That is _absolutely_ none of your business, Bracegirdle!” Bilba huffed. “I suggest you take your nose and stick it in your own business; at least then you would be in the same league as yourself.”  
Lobelia gasped and stalked forward, pointing a finger in Bilba’s face. She resisted the urge to bite it. “You pants wearing weirdo! You’re family may be rich, and you may have a big house, but that doesn’t change anything about what you did,” Her gaze shifted to Basil who glared back. “What the both of you did.” And with that, she spun around and walked back up the path. Bilba watched her go, oddly numb. They hadn’t done anything wrong because their flowers were blue! So why did Lobelia’s nasty words still hurt?  
“Come on Billy,” Basil said, tugging on her arm. “Let’s keep walking.”  
Bilba nodded and grabbed hold of her brother’s hand. Next time, she _would_ bite Lobelia’s finger.  
***

She ended up biting Lobelia's finger before pulling her hair and getting punched in the face. No one bothered her or Basil for their flowers after that.

***

When Bilba turned sixteen, her mother presented her with a beautiful bow and a full quiver of fletched arrows. It seemed to fit perfectly in her hand, and she loved it _so much_. She just knew it was for her when a chill passed through her and orange hawkweed circled around the fingers pulling at the string. She gently set the gift down and lunged for her mother, who caught her good-naturedly even though Bilba was much too old for such things. Basil also got something that day: a carefully etched knife covered in elvish runes of protection and safety. His second mark came then - yellow hawkweed circling his hand, almost exactly like Bilba's. But no soul flower was ever exactly the same, except for special ones.  
“Never let it be said that the children of Belladonna and Bungo Baggins went unarmed into the world,” her father said that night, staring deeply into her eyes. “Though hobbits are gentle folk, it is no good for any of us to be unable to protect ourselves.”  
Bilba could only nod.  
Needless to say, Basil decided he wanted to be a Bounder. Belladonna only laughed and ruffled his hair, reading to them from a great book from a long-ago time about great feats of great warriors.

*****

Bilba loved practicing with her bow, and Basil got very good at throwing his knife. But, as all hobbits know, balance is everything, so they made sure not to spend too much time projecting sharp objects into innocent trees. Bilba learned all of her mother's good recipes (including her gooseberry pie), and her flower marks spread and grew with her own body. Basil tried to learn the art of cooking, but was just _horrible_ in the kitchen, and nearly set the whole smial on fire the first time he tried to bake bread. So instead, he took up all the musical instruments he could find, reed flowers feathering across his back from hip to shoulder, and soon had many a Hobbit lass was swooning over his creamy voice and skillful hands. Bilba chose only one to master, a small flute made by her father. She began to write original pieces, and her brother would play them marvelously. Some of them were good enough to be taken up in the local pub, which made Bilba's ears burn with excitement every time she thought of it. Their mother taught them another language, but it was different from the others. It crashed against teeth and gnarled tongues over strange vowels. But they both learned the Dark Speech in the end, though both Bilba and Basil much preferred the rolling letters of ancient Hobbitish or the happy flight of Elvish, or even the stone-heavy sound of Kuzudul over the Black Tongue.  
When Bilba turned nineteen, she began to learn the workings of Bag End from her father, a bouquet of scarlet lychnis and tiger lilies blooming on her hip, for as the first born, she had a duty to the smial, and to the Baggins name.  
And so Bilba and Basil spent their days happy and full of life as they wandered the forests of the Shire and practiced with their little weapons. They both began to earn money, Basil as a musician and Bilba as a scribe, and would spend it on trivial things at the market or on more weapons from any traveling dwarfs, when they could find them. Those interactions were always curious to Bilba, who simply loved to meet new people and try to get a few stories out of them, though she was more often then not met with a laugh and an instruction to _move along_. More often than not, Basil would drag her away before she could pester the poor things _too_ much, to Bilba's great displeasure.

“Why must you be so rude sometimes, Billy?” Basil asked once as they left the clearing the latest batch of dwarves had decided to claim for their tents and bedrolls. “I know you've got ferns crawling up your,” he sniffed, “Well, everywhere, but that's no excuse!”  
“I don't know!” She huffed back, swinging the throwing knives she had purchased on a chain as they walked, half an eye on her full length sleeves, under which lay her fern flowers which now covered the upper half of both her arms. After Lobelia’s ceaseless taunts and their fight, Bilba had clung to her father’s wish that she cover her marks as much as she could. Her soul was hers and her family’s. No one else's. “They're just so interesting, you know!”She responded, adjusting the sleeves. “What fun it would be to travel the world as they do!”  
“Honestly, you'd think I was the older one sometimes,” Basil chuckled, eyeing his own new knife. “Mark my words Billy. You will find wanderlust in your heart before the end, I think.”  
Bilba could only smack her brother in response, and they walked down the path, hearts full of each other's mirth, laughing in sync with the sun and the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fell WInter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The second chapter, as promised. Canon-typical violence is present in this chapter, so be warned. Bold is Black Speech when inside quotation marks.

In the year 1311 by Shire Reckoning, on Bilba's twenty-first birthday, it snowed so hard that her party had to be brought into Bag End so no one would catch pneumonia. Basil was undoubtedly displeased with this development, since that meant that the stringed instrument band he had put together had to be cut nearly in half to fit in Bag End. As they watched the snow fall in large flakes, Bilba could only poke fun at her brother and enjoy his quartet with the fireplace roaring, instead of celebrating outside like she had done every year thus far. Everyone talked of the great curiosity of such snow in September, but thought little more of it than a flighty panic to get everything out of the ground before the food froze. Some crops and gardens made it unscathed, but others did not. Many a muttering hobbit whispered bad omens at the Green Dragon, fire stoked warm to keep away the early chill. The harvest that year hadn't been record breaking, but it hasn't been horrible either, so most smials were able to fill their pantries for the coming winter. Unlike everyone thought, however, the September snow did not go away; it instead began to pile higher and higher. Bilba had never seen such an accumulation before, and her parents said they hadn't either. And despite the crystalline beauty of the early winter, Bilba began to feel as if a great evil was growing far from the eyes of the Shire.

Thinking such morose thoughts brought her mood down, however, so she strove to think of better things. She played her flute while Basil plucked at a mandolin (one she had gotten him for her birthday) - she wrote little stories and translated pieces of literature for neighbors and learned how to properly bind the books from her father. To Bungo’s great pleasure, after her first work she'd done all by herself had sold, sage bloomed at the nape of her neck, curling delicately around her ears. 

“Billy-ba!” She heard her brother call from the kitchen. She sighed and put her quill down, standing up from her father's desk and blowing out a candle. Her latest piece was a bit tricky, and she had had to consult her elvish book to really get the story.

“Yes, Basil?” She asked, sticking her head into the Hall.

Her brother lay upside down on the couch, his frizzy curls touching the floor as his legs flailed in the air. “I'm bored! Let's go out into the snow. We could help Da shovel the chimney out!”

Bilba chuckled at her brother's posture and crossed her arms. “If you go get my stuff, then I'll go outside with you.”

Her brother grinned and flipped his legs off the chair, racing down a hallway that led to the family outdoors attire. Bilba sat down in the same chair her brother had been occupying, sighing at the comfort of it. She looked up when her mother stepped in, leather-bound book in hand. Bilba recognized it immediately and sprang up. “Ma! Where'd you find that?

Her mother raised her eyebrow at her before deftly turning a page of the book. “This is very good Bilba! You should make more! It would bring in at least as many funds as those silly translation pieces you insist on doing,” she looked up. “They're too easy for you! If you want to work I say publish stories. Though,” she looked back down, “you do such a good job with your binding.”

Before Bilba could respond, her brother tore back into the room, hands full of all kinds of winter clothes. “Got them Billy!” He declared before dumping the clothes in a pile at her feet. Bilba sighed and began to pull her own clothes out, glancing at her mother. “If you really think it's that good, then I'll make more.”

Her mother smiled, and Bilba went into the snow in a glow of happiness at Belladonna's praise. 

Outside, snowflakes were falling lightly. Many hobbits were atop their homes, shoveling out walkways and clearing chimneys and vents from the invasive substance. Bilba’s father had already cleared their pathway, though the snow soared well above Bilba’s head, leveling out at the same height as the top of their smial. The two siblings followed the path their father had made, stepping onto a stair of snow to get to their roof. There, Bungo Baggins was swinging a shovel at the snow around their chimney, trying to clear it out enough to get a proper fire going inside the house without smoking them out. Basil immediately rushed over, grabbed the shovel from their father and continued the work. Bilba followed at a more mellow pace, ambling up to her father with a grin. He turned to her and brushed a few snowflakes from her hair.

“Hello sweet pea. What brought you two out here?” 

Bilba shrugged and pointed to Basil. “He was bored.”

Bungo nodded and adjusted his gloves. Bilba turned to stare out at the Shire. She had never seen so much activity going on at once along the sleepy street. Except, perhaps, during the Midsummer's Eve Festival. But that was different; a celebration. This was work. Nearly everyone was out among the snow drifts, scarves on to protect them from the chill as they wielded shovels against the offending white. Bilba smiled and adjusted her own scarf, one of the first she had made. It wasn’t very pretty, but it was warm. “Mom likes a book I wrote,” she said absentmindedly, looking back at her father. 

His eyes widened. “The one with the black cover?”

Bilba nodded. “She thinks I should try to sell a few copies.”

Bungo smiled. “If she thinks so, then it must be good. I’m not ashamed to admit my jealousy of her for reading it first. I’ll help you with the transcription, if you want.”

Bilba hummed in response, gaze again focused on Hobbiton. There was a bustle of activity coming their way, she realized with a start, squinting to get a better look.  _ What in Yavanna’s could be going on? _ , she thought, raising her hand to shield against the sun. Her father noticed her attention and turned. 

“There must be news.” He said, walking down his snow stairs. Bilba followed behind, curious as ever. Just as they got to their gate, a flushed hobbit nearly skidded to a stop in front of them. Bilba immediately recognized him as Tobias, a local hobbit who had decided to join the Bounders. 

“What’s got you running like that?” her father asked, offering his hand in greeting. 

Tobias waved him off, hands on his knees. “I bring word from Buckland. The river has frozen over. The Rangers, “ his face got a dark look at the mention of them, “have reported sightings of great wolves and other fell creatures roaming the river. I’ve been tasked to warn everyone here in Hobbiton.”

Bilba turned to her father, lips pursed. His face was masked and his tone even: “Thank you Tobias. I won’t keep you any longer.”

The young Bounder nodded and ran up the road, disappearing around the bend. Basil sidled up to them, shovel still in hand. “What was that all about?” 

Bungo shook his head. “Hopefully nothing too much to worry about. This winter is already going to be tough enough, early as it started. I can’t imagine it could really get that much worse.”

“But the wolves-” Bilba started, before being cut off. 

“The Rangers will take care of those,” her father responded, before turning to Basil. “Will you finish the roof for me? I need to speak with Belladonna.”

Basil nodded, eyes wide. “Of course,  _ Ada _ .” 

Bilba watched him disappear onto the roof again, a faint stirring of fear in her belly. Her father was probably right. And though the Brandywine had never frozen over before, she was sure it would be alright. 

She was proven very wrong, before the end.

***

After Tobias delivered his message, Bilba’s family, and many others, stayed on the lookout for anything suspicious. Hobbits went out in groups of twos or threes when searching for more firewood, careful to tread lightly among even the gentle forests of the Shire. It didn’t hurt to be careful, after all. An air of timid watchfulness settled upon Hobbiton, and it was by no means comfortable. 

Bilba sighed and looked up from her work, eyes tired from the candlelight. The snow had completely covered the windows, and the heavy buildup of the stuff made it impossible to keep them clear. So now, even during the daytime, the light inside Bag End was dismal at best. Belladonna had decided they wouldn’t light all the chandeliers in the halls unless light was  _ absolutely  _ necessary so as to conserve the beeswax candles. For it was apparent now that this winter would be  _ very  _ hard. Some families had already begun to run out of food, which had started many families to rationing. Bilba’s own was now down to three  _ small _ meals rather than their usual affair of seven or eight large ones. Seven meals was comfortable for a hobbit, whereas three was hard to bare. Basil complained about it loudly at first, but he quickly accepted the need for it when the Proudfoots had come to their door, shivering and fearful, to ask for food. Belladonna had quickly convinced other residents of Hobbiton to contribute to a mutual fund of food for those who had been unable to fill their larders because of the early snow. Those who could spare food did, but there were few families that had been prosperous enough to do so. 

Bilba looked back down at the pages, blowing on them softly. She had nearly finished copying her book, and her father had finished his two days before. At the rate they were going, she would have quite a few copies to sell before the winter was out. 

“Bilba?” She heard a tentative voice say. “Can I come in?”

She turned to the door to see Basil standing there, looking much smaller than he had in years. “Of course!” She replied, standing up and moving a stack of papers from the only other chair in the room. “You know you don't have to ask.” Well, it quite wonderful when he did. She could recount many times when he had burst into the study, making her spill ink everywhere or scatter papers all across the floor. 

He nodded and sat down, fiddling with something.  _ His knife _ , she realized as she followed suit. “What's going on?” 

He met her gaze, eyes wide. “Wolves have been heard near the border.” He held up an envelope from Buckland with a large seal on it.  _ The Thain's seal.  _

“The rangers were right,” her brother said solemnly. “Though it appears we have more to worry about than Da thought we would.”

She took the envelope and opened it, grimacing at its words. Their grandfather told a grim tale in the letter, reporting that the Horn of Buckland had been blown, and any hobbits who owned a weapon had been called upon in the area. There hadn't been very many to answer the call, even as full of Tooks as Buckland was. Bilba looked at her brother, staring closely at him. A tremor of fear shook through their bond, and she shivered “Have you shown Ma yet?”

He shook his head. “No. I'll show her next.” He got up. “I think it'll work out.”

Bilba nodded, feeling unease take root in her heart. “Sure Basil.”

Eyes full of doubt, her brother left the room.

That night, Bilba sat in front of their door, bow laying across her lap. Basil sat beside her, snoring softly. They had taken up a pitiful watch when Bungo had rushed out the door that evening with two other hobbits to go and check on a family near the bottom of the hill who had not been heard from for a week. At her back, her mother sat reading a book. A knife lay near Belladonna which had been an anniversary present that had hung on the mantle for as long as Bilba could remember. Basil shifted and woke up, sitting up in the chair. “Did I miss anything?”

“No,” Bilba responded, fingering one of her arrows. “Hopefully it stays that way.”

Bungo didn't return that night, or the next morning. Bilba could understand why; she had heard strange noises in the night that had started her heart beating fast, and then another blizzard had swept through. Belladonna had been near inconsolable by morning, as worried as she was for her True One. She kept starting awake and clutching at her heart. If Bilba's own bond with her brother was anything to go by, her parents bind was probably even more distressing when the other was in any kind of danger. Finally, as lunchtime rolled around, Bungo stumbled through the front door, teeth chattering and lips tinged blue as he closed the door behind him. Belladonna immediately leapt on him, dragging him to the fire and piling nearly every blanket they owned onto him. 

“What happened?” Basil asked, wrapping his arms around their father. 

“They were dead,” he said hollowly, opening his eyes for a brief moment. “Froze in the night. I and the others got there just after dark, and then wolves showed up.” At Belladonna's gasp, he shook his head. “We were able to keep them out, but we had to huddle in the cellar. Needless to say, it was  _ very _ cold in there.” He pulled the blankets closer and leaned against his  _ céilebláth. “ _ Evil has entered the Shire.”

Bungo got sick that night, taking on a high fever and a deep cough. Bilba and Basil constantly watched the door, weapons amassed over the years constantly close at hand. Though they had no delusions of grandeur about their skill in battle, their aim, hawkweed marked as they were, was nothing to sneeze at, and a knife to the eye would at least slow something down, should it try to enter their home. Their mother took care of her True One, keeping him cool and forcing dried herbs down his throat. Bilba did not envy her mother's post, though she would gladly take it up when Belladonna grew too tired to continue.

Bungo's fever rose and fell as the days went on. Bilba often found herself at his side, washing his face and placing easily attained snow on his forehead and under his arms while her mother held his hand in a tired grip and Basil kept one eye on the door, even when he took over care for their father. 

After five days, Belladonna began to weaken as well. Bilba watched with sad eyes and a tight throat as tears often threatened to fall at the sight of her parents. _ Ceilebláth  _ were connected, everyone knew that, but the strongest bonds, like what Bungo and Belladonna experienced, extended to overall health as well as shared emotions. And when cypress and marigold, wound together, bloomed across her shoulder, Bilba could barely hold back tears as their mother explained, with sad eyes, that she was fading, just like Bungo.

“What are we gonna do?” Basil asked one night as they both watched the door with hard eyes. 

Bilba sighed and hugged her brother. “Hold on, as best we can.”

Basil didn't respond but held her tighter. Bilba placed her head on his and closed her eyes, focusing on the feel of him with her. She loved him  _ so _ much, her little brother, and knew he loved her back. 

They stayed in their embrace for a moment longer before receding back to their positions in the chairs. 

And then, the howls began. They sent shivers down Bilba's spine as she leaped to her feet, bow clutched in hand and arrow nocked. Her mother emerged from a hallway, haunted gaze focused warily on a spot on the roof. “They sound close.”

Bilba nodded and breathed deeply, trying to gain control over her pounding heart. Above them, faint padding noises could be heard, as well as yips, growls, and the occasional bark. It cast Bag End in a hellish light to Bilba, and she tightened her grip on her bow.

“What if they dig through?” Basil asked, creeping up to her side. 

“They won't,” their mother said firmly. “There's at least twelve feet of snow between us and them, not to mention the additional four feet of soil.”

They all looked up as the roof creaked and the noise got louder.

All at once, Bag End was thrown into a flurry of activity. The door burst open, which Bilba immediately turned to fire upon. A guttural roar was heard as her arrow found its mark, and she shuddered at the sound. Basil rushed to shut the door again and Belladonna helped him, pushing all her weight against the small barrier. Screeches sounded off outside, and Bilba was chilled to find she recognized the language. Black Speech.

“We need to leave,” her mother grunted, locking the door again (though the lock was nearly broken) and pulling a chair in front of it. Basil caught on and grabbed more furniture to brace the door with.

“Outside?” Bilba asked, blood pounding. “What about Da?”

Belladonna shook her head. “We have a higher chance out there if we can make it to the woods. Bungo can pull through,” her face grew tight. “I hope.”  _ We're both fading anyway  _ was left unsaid.

Bilba nodded, knowing that her mother was desperate, and followed her into the room where Bungo lay. “What's going on?” He asked weakly, voice rasping. 

“Shh,” her mother responded, wrapping an arm under him. Bilba hurried to do the same. “We have to leave; get to the forest. The house isn't safe anymore.” Her words were accented by more creaks from the ceiling.

Bungo nodded tiredly and got up on shaking arms and legs. Belladonna swept him off his feet, holding her True One in her arms, which was a feat she couldn't have accomplished before the slim winter hollowed them all out. She looked at Bilba, eyes wide. “Lead the way.”

Bilba nodded and nocked another arrow, going into the hall. Her brother was still by the door, knife poised in his grasp, ready to be hurled at the next threat. He met her gaze and shuddered, before jogging over to them. “Which way?”

“The side door,” their mother said, adjusting her grip on their father. “It's closest to the woods, and farthest away from where they seem to be.”

Basil nodded and fell into step beside Bilba. They walked deeper into the smial, the air cooling as they went. Quicky, Basil disappeared into a side room and emerged with a bundle of heavy cloaks. “We can't go out there and freeze to death.” He said, hefting the pile. Belladonna wrinkled her nose but nodded. “Alright.”

They quickly dawned the cloaks and hurried down the hall, the air growing even more chill. Finally, the sight of a smallish round door greeted them. Bilba breathed a sigh of relief and rushed to the door. She pulled at it and it opened, spilling snow into the smial. Bilba jumped back from the small avalanche and felt fear lance her heart. “We can't get out through there.” She looked at Basil, then her mother. Belladonna was staring at the snow as if it had condemned them. Maybe it had. 

“Back up,” her mother ordered, adjusting Bungo in her arms again. “We'll try the back door. It's higher. Better maintained. Damn it.”

Back into their smial they rushed, carefully aware of the many noises now surrounding them. Distantly, a crashing sound echoed down the hall, and Bilba knew evil had entered their home. 

“ _ Faster!”  _ She breathed. “ _ We need to hurry! _ ”

They were near sprinting now, running faster than Bilba had ever run before. She was distantly aware of her surprise and respect for her mother's strength, keeping up as she was. But it was nearly smothered by the fear racing through her veins, numbing her heart and sharpening her senses. Finally, they reached the door. This one, when opened, still spilled in snow, but a dim light could be spotted near the top of it. Basil jumped forward and began scrabbling at the snow, causing a shaft of moonlight to spill into the hall. Bilba rushed to help her brother, digging madly. 

“ **There you are!** ” She heard from behind her. 

_ They found us,  _ she thought desperately, digging faster. The hole opened just wide enough, and she pushed Basil through, heart racing. Suddenly, her bow was ripped from her shoulder and the weight of her quiver dropped from her back. She turned, wide-eyed, to see her mother holding it and shooting madly. 

“Mom!” She screamed. “We HAVE TO GO!” 

Her mother didn't look back but responded as she fired at the horrible creatures rushing at them. “I love you.”

“So do I,” her father said weakly, standing up with the assistance of the wall. The whites of his eyes were showing as he met her gaze. Bilba's blood turned to ice as she watched him. “Go.” He said, strength lacing his voice again. “Take care of your brother.”

“No,” Bilba whispered, clutching at a knife at the small of her back. “I won't leave you!” She looked down the hall, where many bodies lay. More were coming. 

Belladonna growled in annoyance, gave the bow to Bungo, and grabbed Bilba. Before Bilba could even register it, she had been shoved out of the small opening.  _ Too small for them, _ she realized in despair. Basil immediately noticed when she came onto the snow, rushing to her and helping her up. “Where are they?” He asked frantically. 

Bilba shook her head and pointed. Basil's expression turned to rage and he leaped forward. Bilba caught him around his midsection just as they heard a sickening  _ crunch  _ and a horrible squelching noise _ ,  _ followed by two ear-splitting screams, and then horrible silence. A single, pale blue eye appeared where they had been looking, while in the place of the other eye, blood wept from a gaping hole.

“ **Little rats!** ” it growled, eyes fierce and voice harsh around the ugly language. “ **You cost me my eye!** ” it leered, and Bilba kicked snow in its face before grabbing her brother and fleeing into the night, her parents’ screams still echoing in her mind and a brief flash of searing pain painting the left side of her thigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is where the AU side of things come into play. How did I do? Let me know what you think.  
> See you next week!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depictions of canon typical violence.  
> (Which is pretty violent, because Peter Jackson made LOTR and the Hobbit pretty freaking violent.)

Basil followed his sister’s lead, head reeling from the sudden development of the night.  _ We’re orphans,  _ he thought dully. Cries and shouts echoed out from the darkness, accompanied by the snarls of wolves and the cruel sound of Black Speech as horrible creatures broke through houses and destroyed lives. His sister's emotions added confusion to the mess, and he wished for one moment that it would stop, that he could have some  _ quiet _ . But he quickly gave up that line of thought; he wouldn't trade his bond with Bilba for the world. He kept running, focusing on the pounding of his heart and the sound of his breath. Bilba stopped suddenly, catching Basil by surprise as he nearly ran into her. She gave him a look and then peered around a corner, before cursing. 

“The woods are blocked,” she said, edging back. “We’ll have to go around.”

Basil leaned past Bilba to look around the corner and felt true despair pierce through him. There were at least a dozen wolves that way, all as large as horses and covered in dripping blood. He shuddered and pulled back, meeting his sister’s gaze. Her eyes were oddly blank, but her face was set, determined as stone. He nodded, as she grabbed his hand, pulling him back the way they had come. In the distance, the sound of metal clashing against metal could be heard, and death cries of the horrible orcs invading their home began to sound off like bells. 

“Who could that be?” Basil asked quietly, slowing with Bilba as she peered around another corner. 

“Rangers,” she breathed, eyes wide. “Look.”

Basil did, following his sister’s gaze. Near the base of the hill, tall men in cloaks were driving back the hordes, eyes alight with fury and swords sparking as they deflected blows and sliced through crude armor. His gaze traveled to the left, where a group of hobbits sat huddled, protected by the Rangers. “If we can make it over there, we might have a chance,” he said, pointing to the hobbits. 

Bilba nodded. “Let’s-”

“ **Little rats out of their little hole?** ” a voice said from above them. “ **Who knew such sporting fun could be so** ** _treacherous_** **.** ” They both turned to see a huge, pale orc leering down at them, face freshly wounded and weeping dark black blood. Basil immediately reared back and threw one of his knives. His aim was off, causing the weapon to impale itself in the orc’s shoulder rather than its heart. _Hawkweed indeed, butterfingers,_ he thought wildly. It was then that Basil noticed the orc had no left arm. In the place of a hand was a cruelly spiked metal fixture, stained red with dripping blood. _Our parent's blood,_ Basil realized dimly. This was the same orc that Bilba had first shot when the night began. The same one that had murdered their parents. It roared and Basil felt Bilba’s grip on his hand pulled him backward, fleeing in the opposite direction of the orc and, unfortunately, the Rangers. As they ran, the orc laughed and pursued, its foul breath hot on their heels. Bilba led the thing on a merry chase, weaving every which way, through snow-covered gardens and over the tops of smials. It was all Basil could do to keep a firm grip on her hand and keep his legs pumping hard. They turned a corner and skidded to a halt in front of a great white wolf, chests heaving. Bilba immediately grabbed him and threw him as hard as she could up onto the side of a snowbank. He scrabbled at the snow on instinct and was momentarily impressed with his sister’s strength, before remembering that he had yet to fill out, and she was older than him. He was getting very tired of being thrown out of danger by Bilba, big sister or not. He turned around, furious, and was stopped short at the sight. The orc was hefting his sister by her throat into the air, metal claw poised to drive into her stomach. Basil screamed and pulled out another knife, throwing it as hard as he could. It embedded deeply into the orc’s forearm, but it didn’t even flinch. Instead, it laughed and drove its claw into Bilba’s stomach. She screamed and Basil’s vision went red, and a sharp pain seemed to hit his side, close to where Bilba had just been _stabbed_. He pulled out his last knife and prepared to leap onto the monster, but was beaten by a tall shadow. The Ranger took the orc by surprise and it dropped Bilba to defend himself. After a few quick jabs from the Ranger’s sword, it leaped onto its wolf and fled into the darkness. Basil was stunned for a moment at the unexpected rescue, before jumping down from the snowbank and running to his sister. 

“Bilba!” he cried, falling to his knees before her. His fears were abated when he heard her labored breathing, but not by much. He could barely Feel her. He looked to the Ranger. “Can you help her?”

The man knelt beside Basil and studied her wound. Blood was seeping into her clothes, pulsing out of her with each beat of her heart. The Ranger sighed and swept Basil’s cloak off his shoulders, immediately tearing it into wide strips. Before Basil could complain, the man was pulling up Bilba’s shirt. Realizing that the man was helping her, Basil quickly assisted him. The Ranger then wrapped her stomach tightly and firmly. 

“This is the best I can do for now,” he said grimly. “For the dangers of the night still persist. Come.” He stood up, cradling Bilba carefully in his arms. “Can you hold her? I need my blade free if we are to survive this.” 

Basil could only nod and take his sister, placing her on his back as carefully as he could. The Ranger nodded and led the way down the path, sword held at the ready. Basil kept up as best he could, trying his utmost to keep Bilba from being jostled too hard. But he was still small, and she was almost fully grown.  _ I’m a little tired of trying to keep up tonight,  _ he snarled in his thoughts. As they walked, they met little resistance, and the man quickened his pace. They finally reached an open clearing where many hobbits were gathered, clutching loved ones and taking care of the wounded as best they could. Basil immediately spotted the Gamgees and headed their direction, grateful they had survived. They recognized him and Hob ran forward, taking Bilba off his back. “My, my Basil. Where’re your parents at?”

Basil only shook his head, feeling numb. Hob and his wife exchanged glances before pulling him close to their little fire. Their son, Hobson, who was a little older than himself and Bilba, stared at him with wide eyes. Distantly, Basil recognized the sound of elvish. He turned his ear toward the two Rangers closest to him.

“ _ It seems I was able to drive off the leader. He was injured when I found him; those two hobbits seemed to have the good sense to arm themselves.” _

_“_ Aye,” said the other, who had a proud face and swept-back hair. “ _Good for them._ ” he sighed. “ _Orcs got through our lines, and brought ruin to this peaceful land,_ ” the man looked at Basil, who quickly averted his gaze. “ _Who would have thought the Defiler would have any interest here?”_

The one who saved Basil and Bilba shook his head. “ _ He is a great sower of evil. That filth and his ilk love to destroy the good things on this Earth. What more wholesome place than this to do just that? _ ” he shook his head. “ _ He was supposed to be dead. It appears the source of that tale wasn't as reliable as we thought.”  _ They fell silent, and Basil looked at his sister. Her face was pale and pinched. He checked her wrappings and was pleased to find that the blood flow seemed to be slowing. Bit she was still so  _ silent.  _ Shouts rang through the clearing and Basil leaped to his feet, hand once again on his last knife. What he saw, however, had him rushing forward. “Gandalf!”

The Grey Wizard, astride a large horse, turned and immediately smiled. “Basil! Thank the Valar you made it out alright.” he jumped off his horse and ran to Basil, enveloping him in a hug. “Where’s Bibla? Where are your parents?” 

Basil pulled back and led Gandalf to his sister, avoiding the question. “She got injured.”

Gandalf cursed and knelt beside Bilba, waving off the concerned noises of the Gamgees nearby. “My poor girl.” he closed his eyes and held a hand over her face, muttering softly. She seemed to breathe easier, and Basil felt a knot of tension in his stomach begin to uncoil. Gandalf opened his eyes and looked to Basil. “She is very lucky. Whatever weapon did this missed her major organs, and mainly grazed tissue.” his gaze sharpened behind Basil’s back, and Basil turned to see the Ranger that had saved them standing there. 

“Mithrandir,” he said, bowing slightly. “We wondered if you would show up. A moment too late, I would say.”

Basil looked back at Gandalf, whose eyes were flinty. The wizard sighed and stood up. “Where is Arathorn?”

The Ranger gestured behind him. “This way.”

Gandalf turned to Basil and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back, Little Wish. We need to get Bilba to a good healer, and quickly.” At Basil’s nod, he straightened and followed the man. Basil's eyes tracked their movement across the camp, where the other Ranger who he had been listening to was standing. Gandalf began a furtive exchange with him, voices low. They seemed to reach an agreement, and Gandalf headed back his way. Basil looked back at his sister and help her hand. “Hold on Bilba,” he said to her, trying to be reassuring. “You’ll pull through this.”

*****

With the orcs and their wolves ( _ wargs _ , as Basil came to know them) driven from the land, the Rangers were able to do a count. When Basil heard the number, he felt faint for the first time that night. Nearly seventy hobbits had been slain in Hobbiton, and Basil had no idea how many more had perished throughout the Shire. After the fell creatures had been completely cleared out, a healer had come to patch up Bilba. He was efficient but gentle with her, for which Basil was thankful. After the healer left, Gandalf promptly saw to it that they were brought back home. When they walked through the front door, Basil nearly collapsed at the damage he saw in the front hall. Furniture was collapsed into piles of sticks, and the walls were covered in deep gouges. The air reeked of death, nearly causing Basil to lose his stomach. Gandalf gave a long-winded sigh and headed towards Bilba’s room. The main bedrooms were neatly tucked away from the rest of the house, which meant that they had been spared the destruction of the rest of the smial. 

“I will see to the rest of the house as best I can,” Gandalf had said quietly, setting Bilba in her bed and placing a hand on Basil’s shoulder. “You should stay here with her. Come get me when she wakes.”

Basil nodded as his only response, and Gandalf swept out of the room, eyes ablaze.

Hours passed, and the sun rose, casting its rays into the cozy room. Basil could remember many a long night spent this same as they made forts and planned grand adventures. 

“Gaaah,” he heard through the fog that seemed to lay over his mind. Basil looked up from his position at Bilba’s bedside to see her eyes open, though they were fogged with pain; pain he could feel, faintly. Basil stood up, hugging her carefully.

“I didn't know if you would make it,” he said quietly as she held him.

She shook her head and held him a little closer. “I wouldn't leave you.” Her voice was low and rough, and Basil remembered that she had been hefted into the air by her throat. He pulled back and looked into her eyes. They were bright with unshed tears. 

“It's just us now.”

Basil reeled at her words, feeling tears of his own come on. Over the past few hours, he had cried enough to fill a barrel of ale. Apparently, he had not yet cried himself completely out. They held each other for another moment before Basil remembered his promise to Gandalf. 

“I have to go,” he said, pulling back. “Gandalf wanted me to let him know when you woke up.”

A look Basil couldn’t place crossed his sister’s face, but she nodded and adjusted herself with a groan. “As long as you come back.”

Basil smiled and left the room, heart heavy.  _ I’ll never leave your side again _ , he thought to himself fiercely as he walked through the halls that were so familiar, and yet so foreign.  _ You'll never get hurt again while I’m around.  _ The pain at his side increased for a moment and then stopped, leaving him momentarily stunned. He stopped and pulled up his shirt. There, on his ribs, was a bouquet of cypress, marigold, and mourning bride. The bright colors flashed at him darkly, and he pulled his shirt down fast, fear crawling up his throat. Fading? Most certainly not. No matter what had happened to his mother before she- well, there was undoubtedly another explanation for the dreaded flowers on his ribs. There was no reason for him to leave this earth; Bilba was his life now, always had been. The flowers were wrong, he just knew it. Pushing down nausea, he continued down the halls, looking for Gandalf and hoping he wouldn't stumble upon anything horrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh, the Fell Winter just happened. Needless to say, extreme canon divergence at this point in the story, but I think I've already established that. I'm off to a bike race now, so see you next week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the Fell Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter folks! And one day early, I know. I just want to say how happy I am that so many people seem interested in this story. I can safely say its the most popular one I've done (I've only written one other, so not much competition).

When Basil left the room, Bilba felt a brief flare of some  _ emotion _ course through her. It was intense and distressing. What if he was attacked or hurt or some other terrible thing happened to him while she lay in bed? But the morning sun was bright and her room was comfortable, and her body  _ hurt _ in ways she didn’t know was possible, so she relaxed as best she could when every breath filled her with a low-burning fire, waiting for Basil to return. She spared a brief glance towards her stomach, heart in her throat. It was wrapped tightly in rough cotton and seemed to be packed with a manner of herbs. Smelling deeply, Bilba thought she could detect the faint whiff of yarrow and plaintiff, and the heady scent of kingsfoil was easily discernible. Bilba sighed and closed her eyes, thinking of  _ that _ moment. She had been terrified when that orc had picked her up, choking her out in his cruel grip. As she had looked into his disgusting, watery-pale eyes, she had felt true hatred for the first time in her life. She wondered if her parents had felt the same way before they died.  _ A morbid thought _ , she reflected darkly. She would have been unable to protect Basil if she had died, and even the idea of that sent a coldness running through her veins and a sharp prick sounded off on her left thigh. Her fingers trailed softly across her neck, wincing at the tender spots she found. She imagined great bruises resided there and the thought made her shiver. Her parents had told her to look after Basil, but she had barely been able to save him from one orc. She opened her eyes and traced the familiar patterns on the ceiling.  _ I have to get better, _ she decided.  _ If I’m going to protect him, I need to get stronger.  _ Her resolve hardened, and she nodded to herself. No matter what, she would be able to protect those closest to her. With that decided, she pulled the covers down to inspect her leg. A new mark lay there, deep red peonies and wine-dark scabious twisted together, nearly indiscernible in their closeness. She huffed and pulled the covers back up, anxious for her brother to return and unwilling to acknowledge the flowers.

Basil did return with Gandalf in tow, sans his hat and staff. At the sight of the wizard, Bilba felt a range of emotions. Relief to see him, happiness that he was alright, and a wave of simmering anger for reasons Bilba didn’t really want to place. Perhaps peonies were more applicable than she thought. She smiled and made no attempt to sit up; Gandalf was nearly an uncle to her, after all. “Hello. I see you made it after all,” she looked around the room. “And brought me back home. Did you treat my wounds?”

Gandalf smiled softly and sat in a chair beside her bed. “Only as much as I could. You won’t be getting any infections from that orc’s weapon, and I made sure to care for any internal bleeding, the rest of it was up to one of the Ranger’s healers.”

Bilba held her hand out to Basil, who immediately grasped it. “Well, thank you for what you did.”  _ Where were you when we needed you?  _ The thought was outrageously bitter, even in Bilba's mind.

The wizard got a pinched look on his face. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get here sooner. I had not thought that a pack of orcs would march for the Shire, for I had only heard news of the wolves. I would have made greater haste, had I known the true danger you all were facing, ” he shook his head. “This winter is unnatural. I can see that now.”

“Foresight usually reveals such things,” she responded curtly, squeezing Basil’s hand. 

Gandalf nodded. “Aye, that it does.” The room was uncomfortably silent for a moment before Gandalf stood up. “I’ve nearly finished clearing out the orc-filth from Bag End, and I have retrieved your parents,” his eyes were full of grief as he pulled out two ceramic jars, lids sealed with melted beeswax. “I am truly sorry.”

Bilba felt her eyes prick with tears, grief nearly suffocating her for a moment. From Basil's distressed wheeze, she assumed she was channeling a bit too much. “Thank you.” She gestured to the shelf on the other side of her room, and the wizard placed the jars there reverently. Hobbits we're often cremated so they could be more easily returned to the earth. Her parents would have to wait for that pleasure if the height of the snow was anything to go by.

Gandalf averted his eyes and left the room, causing Bilba to close her own. The sound of her parents’ screams echoed in her mind, and she shuddered, brushing the memories away. 

“Are you mad at Gandalf, Bilba?” Basil asked, voice small.

Bilba opened her eyes again and focused on her brother. She thought about it for a moment,  _ really _ thought about it, and responded. “I don’t think so. I think I’m just looking for someone to channel my anger at, and he’s getting the brunt of it.” At the thought of the old wizard cleaning up her home of  _ corpses _ and finding her parents, Bilba shuddered. The last thing she wanted to see was her parents’ cold, mangled bodies. She was thankful to Gandalf for performing the small mercy of sparing her and Basil of that, at least. 

***

The winter kept going, snowing and bringing howling winds to strike against exposed skin and windows. The attackers were driven out and many hobbits volunteered to break the ice covering the Brandywine. Never again would such a terrible tragedy be repeated if they could help it. Bilba recovered slowly, even with the help of Gandalf. Her wounds were deep and painful, and she often had nightmares of being hefted by her throat and skewered like a fish. On those nights, she woke up with a scream lodged in her throat and wild, heaving breaths. Basil was always there with a soothing word and comforting presence, and though Bilba was grateful for him, she couldn't ignore the deep shadows under his own eyes. 

“Why can't you sleep?” She asked him one night as they lay huddled together in her room. 

Basil made a small nose, not unlike the keening of an injured bird, and pulled up his shirt. Bilba gasped as she saw the horridly beautiful flowers, red, crimson, and fiery orange, etched into her brother's ribs. Tracing a finger lightly over a small petal, she met Basil's gaze, a deep fear seated in her heart. “Are you Fading?”

“No,” he responded, pulling his shirt back down and settling back into the bed. “But it scares me, the thought that at any moment, I could leave you.”

“Nonsense,” Bilba huffed, gingerly rotating to lean against him. “It's a choice to Fade. With flower matches, céilebláth, it's different. Yours hasn't even bloomed. So what if you've got a bit of despair on your soul? It won't beat you.”

Basil nodded and Bilba could feel a sigh of relief leave him, his shoulders relaxing against the headboard. “You're right.”

“Of course I am,” she responded, smirking in spite of herself. “I'm your big sister, after all.” 

He chuckled weakly, and Bilba counted it as a win. Ignoring the pounding headache that began to form at even the thought of her brother being in such pain or, Valar forbid,  _ leaving  _ her, she let the folds of sleep take her.

After a week in bed, she was able to walk again, though she didn't enjoy it. Walking into her own home and barely being able to recognize it had been a harrowing experience, and with no real supplies to fix the damage, they were forced to cobble together what they could. Basil stayed right by her the entire time, the same sadness in his eyes as they hammered in shoddy boards and scrubbed at sullied fabric smelling of evil things. They watched as their pantry dwindled to near nothing, hunger pains filling their bellies and the others of the Shire.

The hunger was strange and debilitating. It made her want to curl into a ball and never get up or rip apart the strangest things to see if they  _ could _ be edible. It made her angry and sullen, or tired and resigned. It even made her grateful for a small moment that her parents were dead as she looked at their nearly empty pantry. It meant one  _ whole _ meal a day for her and Basil, rather than nearly nothing. The thought brought shame to her face and a deep ache to her soul. 

“Billy,” her brother said beside her, startling her out of her melancholy mood. She meant his gaze and tried to smile. It probably came out as more of a grimace. Basil wrapped his arms around her waist and led her away from their depressing pantry. The next morning, two freshly killed squirrels lay on their table. Bilba could only stare at the little creatures she'd never thought of as food before. “Where did these come from?”

“I got Gandalf to teach me how to hunt,” Basil said, walking in with two more of the furry creatures in his hand. “I don't know what he eats, but he knows how to help us help ourselves.”

Dimly, Bilba recalled that she hadn't ever seen the wizard really eat, and he had  _ never _ taken any of their food this winter, even though he stayed with them. She shrugged and got to work on the small animals, thankful for the simple notion of a full belly.

Hunger did strange things to peoples’ minds. It twisted their thoughts and made even the most amiable hobbit paranoid and greedy, scared for their families. On four separate accounts, Bilba had to draw her bow on her fellow hobbit as they tried to shove past her into  _ her _ home. Surely the  _ Baggins _ wouldn't run out of food, especially with that  _ Tookish  _ wealth backing them up. Well, they couldn't have her food or her home. She and Basil  _ needed  _ it.

Before long, sickness swept through Hobbiton, adding to the grief and horror of the winter. The stress from the attack and dwindling food supplies created a perfect storm, and casualty rates were high as fever and chills racked many a hobbit.

Bilba used what medical knowledge she had with herbs, though her medicinal supply was dwindling away like the food. It was depressing, dreary work, especially when she still had to keep a heavy eye on the other people in her home so they wouldn't clean out her pantry, but it was all she and Basil could do to  _ help _ that didn't involve starving themselves.

The Rangers shared what aid they could, further instructing hobbits how to hunt. Bilba even had to learn, when her brother caught the sickness. That was hard, their bond fever chilled as it was, and she nearly ran out of herbs for him. She supposed it would have been somewhat poetic for her brother to die because she gave away herbs and not food. But his time to join the Green Fields wasn't yet, and winter began to break its hold. Slowly at first, and then in a great rushing torrent that flooded the streams and rivers and everything that wasn't on a hill, the Fell Winter finally began to ebb away. Basil left with other young lads to try and fight the flooding, fever-weak though he was ( _ as everyone was). _ Bilba could barely convince herself to let him out of her sight, even for a few hours. But she had her morning glory on her palm, and his promise to always keep a knife on him and her waring heart insisted he help all those he could, so she was able to handle his absence. He always came home with wide eyes that made Bilba curse her wound as she held him, wishing she could go out with him. She worked at getting stronger every day, doing what she could in their smial. And finally, nearly four months after her injury, she was able to go with her brother.

Her first venture outside, she was jumpy and sharp, bow on her back and knife strapped to her hip. Never again would she go out into the world without a weapon. She walked with her brother down the muddy lane, a chill still in the air, and could barely handle what she saw. The people she passed were much too thin, emaciated, with wide eyes and slumped shoulders. A hand found its way to her face, and Bilba realized that she too had lost what fat had once resided on her frame. Her gaze turned to Basil, and she truly beheld the sharpness of his chin and the stark lines of his cheekbones. Anger flashed through her and there was nowhere for it to go.  _ Those orcs killed our parents _ , she thought viciously, grip tight on her knife.  _ They ruined our home and the lives of so many people. They- _

“Bilba,” her brother said softly, hand on her shoulder. She looked over at him and dimly realized that he had grown, despite the horror of the year. “Take a deep breath. Let's just help where we can.”

Bilba realized that he had felt her anger, and she grew ashamed. He didn't deserve to feel her wrath. She wanted him to be happy and feel joy, not the bone-crushing anger that swept through her so often now. She nodded, and they continued walking. 

Helping move the bags of sand to protect homes from flooding and attempting to direct the sheer amount of water cleared Bilba's mind, and she was happy to finally get a better feel for who had survived.

Though Gandalf burned their parents to dust during the winter, they held their parents’  _ real _ funeral as soon as the ground truly cleared. Bilba and Basil planted a weeping willow above their ashes, for they had gone before their time. Many others performed the same ritual that day, much to everyone’s deep regret. 

“What do we do now?” her brother asked as they watched the red sunset that night, grief flashing through their bond and marks twinging slightly. They made quite a pair, with their despair and anger and unhealthy love. 

The question seemed to prod daggers into Bilba’s heart, and she held Basil closer. “Carry on, I suppose.” She placed her chin on his head, stroking his curls. “Plant our crops. Rebuild. Prepare.” The near ever-present anger tried to bubble up, and she forced it down.

Basil looked up at her and nodded, green eyes shining in the fading light. “For what?” 

Bilba closed her eyes: “Anything.”

*****

They went back inside when the stars came out and the moon shone brightly on the soggy fields. For a brief moment, the light of the moon had painted the landscape white in Bilba's eyes, and she immediately felt the panic building that she recognized was paired with the very thought of snow. Basil felt the same way, a breathless fear zinging through their palms, and so they headed inside where Gandalf immediately started a roaring fire to drive of the chill that seemed to reside on all their hearts. 

“Bilba?” Basil asked her, carefully propped up against her side.

“Hmm?” she responded, eyes closed. 

“I want to get stronger,” he said quietly. “I want to be able to protect you.”

Bilba opened her eyes and stared at her brother.  _ He feels as bad as I do about what happened,  _ she realized. She wrapped an arm around him and gingerly pulled him closer. “So do I. We can get stronger together, and then we can protect each other just like Ma and Da told us too.”

Basil looked up at her with shining eyes and Bilba kissed his hair.  _ Though I’ll never let you protect me at the cost of yourself,  _ she vowed silently. Little did she know, her brother was thinking the exact same thing.

***

Bilba prodded at her scars, five circular depressions on her skin that were numb to the touch, even after the months since that night. She looked up at Gandalf, who had just cleared her as fully healed, and tried to smile. “Thank you.” 

The old wizard nodded in response and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Bilba, your strength inspires those around you,” he looked to her brother, who was determinedly trying to replace a section of the countertop that had been destroyed. “I’m glad you have each other.”

Bilba pulled her shirt down properly and stood up, grateful for the complete knowledge that doing so wouldn’t double her over in pain. “I am too.”

Gandalf had to leave soon after that, claiming he was off to find out how the orc pack had made it as deep into the Shire as they had without any trouble. Bilba watched him go with mixed feelings. She had come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t the wizard’s fault her parents had died ( _ it was mine, if I had insisted they come- _ ), and he had been a big help to her and Basil during her recovery. Basil stood at her side silently, before turning and heading back into the house. Bilba sighed and followed him; they had yet to get all the orc blood ( _ or their parents’ blood) _ out of the carpet. 

Bungo Baggins and Belladonna Baggins nee Took’s will was read soon after Gandalf left and offered no surprises to anyone who heard it. Bilba was named the heir and receiver of Bag End and all its effects. It specifically stated that she was to receive it even if she was not yet 33, though it could be operated under a supervisor should she prove unable to handle its many affairs after a three month trial period. Much too quite a few relative’s displeasures, Bilba didn't appoint anyone and had no plans to fail in her new duties. Basil received a share of the smial and a fair percentage of the inheritance. The will didn’t change much about Bilba’s life besides a few hours lost on paperwork and safety in knowing that the smial their father had built wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What am I going to do with my little hobbit babies? Well, partially mine, anyway. Tell me what you think!  
> On a side note, my bike race went well. I got in a big crash at the start but was able to get 11th anyway, so that's fun. And Colorado is beautiful this time of year, so an all-around good bike trip. See you all next week!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rebuilding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm late. I could have been later though :D

“Aagh!” Basil growled, throwing his hammer on the ground and collapsing in a chair. “This is impossible!”

His sister looked up at him from her position on the ground and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I offered to repair the door frame, but you said I shouldn't have to stretch that much,” She went back to scrubbing at the floor. “Even though you're shorter than me.”

Basil shot Bilba a look and stood up, stomping towards the door. 

“Where are you going?” She asked, and a flare of panic shot through his morning glory. He paused and looked at her, and realized he had been striding much too purposefully towards the door for his sister's comfort. “I need to go outside,” he stated, rubbing at the back of his head. “Do something else. I could hunt if we need it.”

Bilba shook her head and stood up, dusting off her work skirt. “No, we’re good from the last trip. Out we go.”

Basil nodded and grabbed his knives, while Bilba grabbed her bow and quiver. They headed out into the sunlight of the morning, and Basil was happy to feel the true warmth of spring in the air, as delayed as it was. They walked onto the top of Bag End and across their garden, which had been expanded to encompass nearly the entirety of their vegetation-covered roof, heading towards a target field they had set up, and grass they had cut short. 

As soon as the ground had truly dried out, they had built their little training ground. It was a way for Bilba to unleash her anger ( _ which was so often present _ ) and for Basil to get his mind off of troubling, disturbing thoughts ( _ blood pooling, bodies cold- _ ). He looked around and sighed, putting on his belt and turning to Bilba. “Bow or knife today?”

Bilba snorted and strung her bow. “What do you think?”

Basil rolled his eyes and planted his feet, pulling out a knife and taking aim. Bilba did likewise, and for a while, the only noises were the twang of Bilba's bow and the thud of Basil's knives impacting with the wood. He got into a rhythm of aim, throw, retrieve, and relished the burn beginning to build in his arms. Suddenly, Bilba stopped firing, and Basil looked at his sister. She had a mischievous glint in her eye, and it warmed Basil's heart to see such an expression on her face.

“I'll race you down to the bridge,” she said, placing her quiver against a rock. “To get stronger, we've gotta do more than just hurl objects into other objects.”

Basil smirked, and the expression felt foreign. “You’re on.” 

They took off running, air rushing past his face and teasing his hair. Ahead of him, Bilba raced, bound hair bouncing as they seemed to fly down the hill. And for a moment, Basil felt the grip on his heart, present ever since his rib mark appeared, loosen for a moment. And then they crashed into a pair of hobbits. Basil let out a shout as he rolled down the hill, tangled with some foreign figure. They finally came to a stop and Basil groaned, opening his eyes. He was trapped under a body, and a head of hair was shoved in his face. It wasn't Bilba's. “Ge’ off me!” He wheezed, trying to roll onto his side, eyes searching for Bilba. She was to his left, similarly pinned, and he sighed a breath of relief. 

“Sorry, sorry,” the lass on him mumbled, cheeks full of blush. She staggered to her feet and held out a hand. Basil grabbed it and hoisted himself up. Upon standing on his own two feet, he started. “Primula?” 

Said hobbit curtsied, still red. “Hullo, Basil.” 

Basil looked at his sister and smiled. “And Drogo Baggins!”

“Apologies for that,” Bilba said, pulling leaves out of her hair. “We weren't looking where we were going, it would seem.”

“Oh, you're alright,” their cousin answered, scuffing his feet on the ground. It was then that Basil realized that they were both armed with some type of blade. 

“Whatcha got there?” He asked, gesturing to their weapons. If possible, Primula turned even redder, and she mumbled something, looking down. Basil felt amused by her actions and instead turned to his younger cousin. “Well?”

“We were looking for you two, actually,” Drogo responded, meeting Basil's gaze. 

“Why?” Bilba asked, coming to stand by her brother. “Nothing's wrong, is it? We have a little bit of food from the last shipment from the rangers…” The thought of giving away food sent anxiety racing through Basil's heart, and he glared sharply at Bilba for a small, greedy moment. 

“No no, nothing like that,” Primula finally answered. “We, well, you might think it's silly,” she paused, and then said in a rush, “we-want-to-train-with-you.”

Bilba smiled, and Basil nearly held in a laugh, relieved and a bit ashamed of himself. When was the last time he had laughed? “Really?” Bilba asked, amusement coloring her tone.

“Yes,” Drogo supplied, stepping closer to his - were they sweethearts? - friend and placing a hand on her shoulder. “You two are the only ones outside of Buckland who seem to want to do anything about,” he paused, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “About what happened. It's downright eerie, the way everyone acts around here.” His eyes were serious, which was a strange expression to see on the young face.  _ Not much younger than me, _ Basil remembered suddenly.

Bilba smiled and stepped forward, offering her hand. “Well, we're not experts, but you're welcome to come run around with us. I have a few books and some advice from Gandalf plus Basil here,” she smiled at him, and he felt his heart warm. She seemed so alive, much more so than she had been. She continued: “We just try out some stuff on each other, and the more the merrier.” 

The two hobbits smiled, eyes bright. “Great! When do we start?”

Basil shared a look with his sister and he grinned. “Well, we were racing down to the bridge when we ran into you,” he leaned in and winked, and almost felt normal. “Improve our stamina and all.”

Primula giggled, and Drogo shot her a look. “Let's go then!”

****

The days went by in an undefined pattern, where Bilba and Basil would work on repairing Bag End, tend to the garden (with Hob and his son Hob _ son _ ’s help) and train. Primula with her yellow tulips and Drogo with his red hyacinth sparred with them nearly every day, and after consulting on of Bungo's medical books, they all decided on exercises to make them stronger, faster. Going into her father's study had been a test in will power, and Bilba had nearly failed. But with Basil by her side, she had been able to enter the small room for the first time since  _ that night _ and find the book.

Others began to join them, like Tobias, who had decided to come home from his Bounder job to take care of his lonely father who's Heart Flower had died during the Fell Winter. He was invaluable in improving their fighting techniques and shared lots of tips on battling foes larger than oneself, which was basically everyone if you were a hobbit. Bilba felt herself grow better, and she was happy to see the same for Basil. 

Summer came, and with it, the first crops were harvested. A great celebration was held that day, attended by hobbits from Hobbiton and Buckland alike. The roaring bonfire and warm summer air finally convinced Bilba that winter was behind them, and she felt a bit of tension unfurl at the realization.

“You're smiling,” her brother whispered into her ear as they sat at the long table near Primula and Drogo. 

She looked into her brother's eyes and pulled him into a hug. “I know.”

“I like it when you're happy,” he sniffed, pulling away after a moment. Tears gleamed in his eyes, and Bilba wiped one away with her thumb. A wave of love crashed through her from their bond, and tears pricked her own eyes. He smiled at her and went back to filling his plate. She shook her head and followed suit.

Later that night, Basil played his fiddle for the first time since the Fell Winter, and Bilba danced along, letting her brother's merry tune fill her bones and soothe her heart.

***

As it always goes, the seasons began to turn, and Autumn swept into the Shire with little fanfare. Bag End’s repairs were finished, though Bilba had given up on the carpet and ripped it all up to replace it, much to Basil’s displeasure; it meant more work for him. Still, their home was repaired, and it finally felt like a safe place again. The Harvest came and every hobbit with working hands participated, scythes swinging, and fights nearly broke out over the growing piles of food. The Fell Winter was so still  _ so _ fresh in mind and heart, and everyone was fearful for their families. 

“Stop!” Bilba yelled as yet another scuffle began. She marched forward and shoved the two hobbits apart. Internally, she cursed. One she recognized as a Sackville-Baggins. The other was a Proudfoot. “What do you think you're doing?” She felt Basil's presence at her shoulder, and she subtlety settled into a battle stance.

The Sackville-Baggins sniffed and crossed his arms. “He here nearly stole my share!”

“Did not!” The Proudfoot growled out, eyes fiery. “Way I sees it, you jus’ waltzed your way over here and demanded my lot. Well, I won't give it to ya!”

Bilba felt a headache begin to grow. She sighed and pushed in between the two. “We're not gonna make it through this next winter if we don't work together,” she hissed, hands on her hips. She huffed and turned to the rest of the field, which was now watching the interaction. “You hear that? We've already lost so many of our kin, our friends! We're rebuilding, that’s true, but last winter was the worst thing to happen since the Wandering Days.” She glanced at Basil, who nodded. She focused her gaze on the two dissenters again. “Put aside your differences and help each other. This field is large, and the harvest is good. No one will starve this winter.”

There was silence for a moment, and then cheers went up from the crowd. “Here here!” Her brother crowed, grabbing her hand and raising it high. Bilba blushed and pulled from his grasp, but smiled fondly at him. Other hobbits clapped, and she looked down. A chill ran through her, and she started, looking to her right arm. A bloom of spotted thorn-of-crown encircled it from her elbow to her wrist, dotted with white wintergreens. Basil laughed and grabbed her hand, poking at the buds. “Don’t develop an aversion to authority,” he joked.

She rolled her eyes and punched him with her free arm. “Come on. We have work to do.”

***

Watching winter come in was one of the hardest moments of Bilba’s life. The first snow was light, and it didn’t even stick to the ground, but to easily could she imagine it piling higher and higher, blocking out the light and all means of escape. 

“Bilba! Come away from that window!” 

She started at Primula’s voice and shook herself from her melancholy thoughts. Coming to join her friends by the fire, she lit her pipe and sucked in the fragrant smoke, holding its warmth in her lungs for a moment before exhaling. 

“I don’t know how you can handle that stuff,” Basil said, settling beside her. “You or father.”

Bilba rolled her eyes. “It is completely un-hobbitish that you do not appreciate Long-Bottom Leaf.”

“Your sister’s right,” Drogo said, settling beside Primula near on the ground near the fireplace. “Hobbits invented the art of smoking; the least you can do is honor our history.”

Primula wrinkled her nose. “For your information, I don’t like it either.” 

After that, the conversation turned into an argument over the appeals and disappeals of smoking. Bilba could only laugh and thank the Valar that she had found such wonderful friends. 

The winter was normal and passed by uneventfully, much to the relief of everyone in the Shire. Bilba began to write again, and Basil began to compose his music once more. She wrote a book with her mother as the heroine who saved her prince from captivity. Bilba hoped that her parents would appreciate the story. When her friends read it, they liked it enough to help her transpose it, and before the winter was out, she had enough copies to fill her office drawers.  _ Hopefully, I can sell these all, or I’ll never have any room _ , she thought as she looked at them. 

The river flowed freely all winter, and no inkling of wolves or goblins was heard on the eastern border.

Spring came, and the normal equinox celebration took place. Bilba sold her books at the fair and danced with her brother at the shindig the Old Took put on in the Old Barn. Her grandfather always did throw the best parties, and this was no exception. 

After the dance, when the stars cast their gentle light over the land and candlelight could be seen through nearly every window, Bilba and Basil visited their parent's grave. Bilba read some of her new book to them and Basil played them a mournful tune that brought tears to her eyes. It had been more than a year since they had passed, and they felt the loss of their parents dearly. But they knew their parents wouldn’t have wanted them to linger long, and so they rejoined the land of the living soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What'd you think? I know, this chapter is a little slow, but I have to write just a little bit of filler. See you (hopefully) next week!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to Buckland

“I just got the strangest request.”

Bilba glanced up at her brother from where she sat under the party tree, reading in the light of the evening sun. He settled beside her and took out a knife and whetstone. The scratchy  _ shiink-shiink _ of the stone against the metal made Bilba wince, and she closed her book with a huff. “And what might that request be? Surely it’s not old Petunia again, you’ve already told her  _ no _ .”

Her brother gave her a withering look and she shrugged. “No, it’s not like that,” he replied, throwing the dagger into the ground and pulling his mandolin off his shoulder. He began to absentmindedly strum the many-stringed instrument and a merry tune leaped about on the evening breeze. “It’s a business request. They put it down in lettering and everything.” Still strumming, he reached into his pocket and handed her neatly folded paper with a small stamp on the front, recognizable to Bilba as the Gamgee’s family stamp. She grinned and unfolded the paper, eyes tracing over the Hob’s easily recognizable font. 

_ Bilba and co. _

_ I am wondering whether your little band of rabble-rousers would be so kind as to escort me and my vegetable cart to Buckland, and perhaps a bit beyond. I have a few buyers to the east for my produce, and I would appreciate some extra protection, as would my wife.  _

_ Yours, _

_ Hob _

Bilba folded the paper back up and Basil raised an eyebrow. “Well? What does it say?”

“Like you don’t already know,” she responded, standing up and stretching. “Why did he send a letter instead of just coming to ask? He knows where we live.”

Basil shrugged and plucked a few more notes before standing as well. “What d'ya say? It’d be an excuse to get out of the house and stretch our legs a bit. And we could help the Gamgees out. They’ve certainly done enough for us to merit that, at least.”

Briefly, Bilba desperately wanted to tell Basil no, if only to keep him off the East Road. But she shook her head. If she went, then she would be much more comfortable with her brother at her side where she properly keep watch on him.

Bilba sighed and tucked her book under her arm. She knew that her and her friends’ actions, training and such, hadn’t gone unnoticed, but she was unsure of what to make of Hob’s request. Surely it was the Bounder’s job to accomplish such tasks? But, he had asked for her, and she was loathed to decline on a whim. “Let’s ask the others,” she said, walking towards the lane that lead back to Bag End. Her brother matched her stride, grinning. 

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll have no problem doing it!”

****

“Hob wants us to what?” Drogo said, hands on his hips as he glared at Bilba. She sighed and knocked another arrow, letting it fly into the target. Before it could, however, one of Basil’s knives flashed through the air, knocking her arrow off its path. The hobbit lass scowled, annoyed, and glared at her brother before turning back to Drogo. 

“He just wants some security for his produce as he heads East,” she explained again, setting her bow down and stretching out. “It would be like a walking holiday, only we’d bring our weapons.”

“So it’d just be a normal walk then,” Primula said, idly twirling her short sword around. “I can’t imagine I’d ever leave the Shire again without my sword.”

Drogo scowled at his sweetheart and sighed, turning to point his finger at Tobias. “And what do you think of this? Shouldn’t we direct Mister Hob’s request to the Bounders?”

Tobias rolled his eyes: “The Bounders don’t do stuff like this.” He pushed off from where he was leaning against a tree and held up his fingers. “One, there are like, fifteen Bounders in the entire West Farthing, so they’re spread  _ pretty _ thin. Two, half of them have absolutely  _ no _ idea what their doing, and would more likely endanger anyone they were sent to guard. Three, there is  _ so much _ paperwork involved in moving even a  _ single _ Bounder-”

“Alright, alright, we get it,” Basil grumbled, budging into the conversation. “They’re next to useless besides actually doing their scouting job at the perimeter.”

“Precisely,” Tobias agreed, directing his gaze towards Drogo. “There’s more than one reason I decided to leave.”

Drogo looked around him and grimaced. Turning to Primula, he sighed. “Do you want to go?”

“Of course!” she exclaimed, sheathing her sword. “It sounds like a good idea! Especially if we’re the only ones who can help poor Hob. His family is so sweet, after all.”

Bilba held in a giggle at the look on Drogo’s face. “Cheer up, Cousin. Your respectable hobbit name won’t be  _ too _ tarnished because of a walk to Buckland.”

“Not like  _ you’d _ care about the respectability of the Baggins name,” he muttered under his breath, before sighing and nodding his assent. At Bilba’s mock look of horror, he chuckled.“Alright. When do we leave?”

They left the following week, much to Hob’s delight. He had two wagons full of all sorts of delicious vegetables and a few coils of good, sturdy rope. One of them was at least half-full of large, scrumptious mushrooms, which Hob drove personally, all the while keeping a stern eye on his son, Hobson. Bilba was secretly proud of her gardener; his crops were the best in all the Shire, and she was glad someone had seen that and wished to purchase it. She also supposed that the lingering fear of winter still resided over the land, and many a hobbit was seeking to fill their larders  _ extra _ full this year, and probably the next hundred years as well. They took a slow pace, for some parts of the road needed extra caution to get the wagon around and they made camp at night well before the sunset. Even in the Shire, it would do no good to be caught traveling after dark. 

“I can’t tell ye how much I appreciate this,” Hob said one night while Basil was plucking out a merry tune and the fire was crackling happily. “Ever since the Fell Winter, I’ve been hesitant to make these longer journeys alone.”

“What am I, chopped lettuce?” Hobson grumbled from his father’s side, idly poking a stick into the fire. 

“ O’course not,” Hob replied, ruffling the faunt’s hair. “You're the cream ‘o the crop, my boy. You jus’ don’t have a weapon.” The old gardener turned to Bilba and smiled. “Thank you for humoring an old man.”

“Oh, you’re not that old,” Basil said, throwing Hob a wink. “And besides, who could argue with the size of your tomatoes?”

Hob chuckled. “Thank ye, lad.”

The journey went by smoothly enough. It rained on the second day, giving Drogo a good reason to complain, but other than that, Bilba felt that it went rather well. Their services weren’t needed to Buckland, which was no real surprise to anyone, but it was a relief anyway. 

Hob was able to deliver his first load to a small family living in a house in the style of a hole rather than the actual thing. On his way to the second delivery, however, they encountered some trouble. Tobias noticed it first, eyes narrowing and sword drawn as he glanced down a suspicious-looking side street. Bilba noticed his reaction and readied her bow, arrow pulled back to her cheek as she sighted down the shaft. 

“What is it?” Primula asked, sword drawn as well. 

Before Tobias could answer, three men emerged from the shadows. Their cheeks were hollow and eyes sunken. They all had greasy hair that hung limply around their faces, and one pulled out a knife. 

“Wha’ave we ‘ere?” one chuckled, beady eyes narrowing in on the food in the carts. Bilba’s grip tightened for a moment, and she sent a quick look to Basil, just to make  _ sure _ he was alright. His knives were drawn, and he was crouched low. Her attention was drawn back to the men as they advanced, slowly. Behind her, she heard Hobson squeak as he scrambled back as far as he could on the wagon. 

“Nothing that concerns you,” Bilba replied, bow held steady.

“Whas this?” the man leered, leaning down slightly. “One ‘a the li’le folk, armed all up? Wo’ is the world comin’ too?”

Bilba kept her gaze firmly on the man, but panic was starting to build slightly as the ruffians got closer to her brother. What were men like these few doing in Buckland?.  _ Keep it together,  _ she thought bitterly.  _ You’ve faced down wags and orcs and seen horrible things. These are just a couple of thugs.  _ Taking a deep breath, Bilba glared at the men. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll all turn around right now. This product has already been spoken for, and we’ve come far enough that it would be a shame to fail in our delivery of it.”

One of the men let out a bark of laughter, and Bilba heard Drogo growl from behind her. All the men got closer, and Bilba let an arrow fly. It buried itself into the leader’s shoulder, and he howled, dropping his knife and grabbing at his shoulder. Quick as a flash, anger simmering in her blood at the  _ audacity _ of these people, Bilba had another arrow drawn and was aiming it at the other two. “That was a warning shot. Kindly leave us in peace,” she stated. “Or the next one goes somewhere a bit less superfluous.”

“Oh, ya 'ink it’s ‘at easy, do ya?” the man Bilba shot growled, inclining his head. Immediately, the other two rushed forward, and Bilba lost sight of her brother as he disappeared behind the bulk of the man. She snarled and pulled out her knife, bow discarded for fear of accidentally hitting on of her friends, carefully wielding it against the larger man’s blade. The fight was fast-paced and much different from her melees with her brother or friends, but it was similar enough to find an opening in the man’s swings. In a few short strikes, she had her blade at his throat, bond singing with adrenaline-charged energy. Around her, she heard the others do the same with the other two men. 

“Tobias,” Bilba called out, knife pressed against the man’s jugular. “Go try to find a Bounder or two. These three should be dealt with by the Thain.”

Her friend nodded and rushed out of sight and around a corner. Bilba sought out her brother’s gaze and was relieved to find him meet it, eyes alight with a fiery passion.

Soon enough, a few Bounders came into view and took the three men off their hands, giving Bilba and her friends odd looks all the while. Let them talk. They had successfully protected Hob and his son and no one had gotten hurt. That was all Bilba could ask for. It wasn’t until later that the whole affair caught up to her, and she was nearly  _ sick _ at the thought that she could have killed those men. Basil noticed her distress immediately and was there for her, his presence a welcome comfort.

***

Upon returning to Hobbiton, they were met with the unseemly face of Lobelia and her friends. Basil was instantly on high alert, and he tried to duck behind his sister to keep out of her sight. Lobelia had always been an ambitious girl, and she had attempted to take that out on him a few times. There were a few parties that Bilba would  _ never _ hear about if only to spare him the embarrassment of confessing all the ridiculous hiding spots he’d had to come up with over the years. Lobelia had certainly gotten over her joy of throwing cruel words his way, and he often wished it wasn’t so. Bilba only gave him a look and stepped forward with Hobson, hand fingering her bow. 

“Lobelia,” she said in greeting. “What brings you out on this fine afternoon?”

“I could ask the same of you,” the girl replied, nose stuck so far into the air Basil was concerned something might land in it. “Strolling around with those  _ toys _ you think are so amazing.” Behind her, one of her cronies laughed forcefully, the noise grating on Basil’s ears. His morning glory started to tingle, and he could feel Bilba’s rage start to build. Before he could step around his sister and give the vile girl a piece of his mind so Bilba wouldn’t end up gutting her, Hob gave a hearty laugh. 

“I’m afraid I asked for these youngins assistance, Miss Lobelia,” he said, still chuckling. “I specifically requested their help because of said toys.” The old gardener sobered, giving Lobelia such a glare that she seemed to deflate. “And besides, it's unbecoming to be so rude. What would your father say if he heard you were out and about, slandering your good name?”

Primula giggled from behind Basil, and he smiled as Lobelia turned an interesting shade of purple. 

“Humph!” she snarled before spinning around and continuing on her way. Basil looked at his sister, whose gaze tracked Lobelia’s every movement like the unpleasant woman was prey. “Lighten up,” he said, punching her shoulder. Bilba seemed to shake out of whatever trance she was in and she smiled at him, eyes nearly unreadable. 

“You’re right,” she said, stuffing her hands in her pockets and leading on. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks.”

Basil said nothing and wrapped an arm around her waist, matching stride with her as they went home, their friends in tow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! My posting schedule has gotten off a bit, if you haven't noticed. Sorry. Anyway, I forgot I didn't mention this last time. I changed both Drogo and and Primula's birth dates to being a bit earlier in this story than in canon.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1313, Shire Reckoning

(1313 s.r.)

After that first trip with Hob to Bree, Bilba and her friends were called upon by many families seeking a bit more protection than that offered by a bedroll and a prayer to Yavana. Some trips East were uneventful and some were not. And with each successful return home, Bilba felt a bit lighter, a bit more whole. She wrote more books, often staring her friends in some way, and sold them to merchants under the pen name of Bilbo B. The summer passed in a bright whirl of evening sunsets and laughter and the thud of an arrow striking wood. Basil's birthday, when he full and properly entered his tween years, was celebrated in traditional hobbit fashion, and Bilba loved the carved pipe fashioned after a dragon that he gave her. His other gifts to their friends were similarly thoughtful, while the mathoms went to those such as Lobelia and her friends. His party wasn't the grandest, but it was one more opportunity to celebrate, and no one had anything to say against that. Bilba's birthday, soon after, was similar in size. She gave her friends poems and gave Basil an overcoat embroidered with thin reeds and yellow hawkweed. He was ecstatic about the gift and promised to wear it all the time.

\---

“Won't you play for us?” Primula asked one night as they all sat around a merry fire near their little training ground, surrounded by stars that were especially bright in the crisp Autumn air.

Basil sighed and slung his mandolin to his front, deftly tuning the strings. “What would you like to hear?”

“Oh you know you love it,” Primula stated, snuggling up closer to Drogo. “and besides, I was talking to Bilba. I know she keeps that little flute tucked away somewhere,” She turned to Bilba. “but I've never heard you play it.”

Bilba ducked her head, pulling her pipe away from her mouth to hide a grin as Basil began to pout. “Don't insinuate that you ever want to hear music from somewhere besides Basil's gifted hands; he’ll get insulted.”

“Bah, you two can play together then,” Tobias grumbled, looking up from his position on the ground. “This evening's too nice to let it go by without a tune or two.”

Bilba sighed and stood up. “Fine. I'll have you all know that I'm a bit out of practice though.”

“Well, we'll be the judge of that," Primula responded curtly, nose in the air. Everyone laughed and Bilba went inside to grab the little wooden flute. Though she hadn't touched it since before, she knew exactly where it was. Entering the study was getting easier; she no longer saw phantoms dancing across the room, laughing merrily and calling her name. She no longer heard her Pa's voice as a whisper in her ear, gently correcting her letters and chuckling when her frustrated hand spilled ink all across the paper. Primula's high soprano squeal sounded from outside, breaking Bilba from her thoughts. Smiling, she grabbed the flute from its place on the shelf and played with her brother for the first time in two years.

\---

Winter came and went again, and the year started anew with a great flash of light, for Gandalf had come back to the Shire just in time for the celebrations. His fireworks lit up the snow-covered ground in such a way as to dispel Bilba's deep-seated wrath whenever she saw the white crystals. It was something she didn't know if she could ever overcome, like the ugly nightmares that woke Basil screaming sometimes, or his vacant stare in the deep folds of midnight, but together, and with their friends, they got through the silent winter with little incident.

"I'm glad to say I find you much improved," Gandalf said one night as Bilba and Basil sat with him at their mantel, his staff leaned against the fireplace and casting merry shadows across the room.

Bilba smiled and sucked a deep drag from her pipe while Basil struck a little tune.

"It still hurts," he said, looking down. "But not as much. How is that okay? Are we forgetting them?"

"No my dears," Gandalf replied solemnly. "Your parents were full of life and love. They never wanted you two to experience an ounce of hardship. The best way you can remember them is to be happy, not sulking away in some dark place."

Bilba let a smoke ring escape from her lips, the shape bursting as it made contact with the mantel. "Perhaps you're right."

Gandalf nodded smugly and settled more deeply in his chair. "Of course I am, my dear. When have I ever led you astray?"

Basil chuckled. "That time father nearly skinned our hides because we were out trying to find the elves. Entirely your fault; after all, Mother only started telling us those stories because you took her out into the world."

Chuckling, the old wizard leaned back in his seat and tugged at his beard. "Your tongue is as sharp as ever, my dear."

"And you don't even have to live with her," Basil said glumly, the firelight a merry reflection in his eyes.

"Perhaps not," Gandalf replied, bringing his pipe to his quirked lips. "And I'm sure my life is that much darker for it."

Bilba threw one the pillows at Gandalf, nailing him squarely in the face. The wizard looked surprised for a split second before laughing and throwing it back. Pillows began to fly without reservation, and laughter filled the old smial.

\---

With the warming days and shortening nights, Bilba began to feel restless. To remedy this, she asked for her friends to come with her on a book-selling journey, as no hobbit around was good enough to have vegetables out of the ground in early spring.

“What will our final destination be then?” Basil asked as they packed, loading books into waterproof travel cases.

“Oh, no farther than Bree, I should say,” Bilba replied. “We’ll pass through Buckland on the way, stop to see Grandfather again.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to tag along,” Gandalf chimed in, his wizened head popping into the room. “I’m heading in that direction anyway, as it so happens.”

“Leaving again are you?” Basil sighed, folding his arms. “Where is it you disappear to? Are your fireworks so sought after that you must only visit twice a year before going off in a mad rush?”

“My dear boy, I hardly leave in a ‘mad rush’,” Gandalf laughed. “And so what if they are? Do you hobbits hold the monopoly on an appreciation for a wizard’s work?”

“Ignore him Gandalf, you’re welcome to come along. Another set of eyes on the road never hurts.” Bilba said, lightly pushing her brother. “Basil is just feeling a little unappreciated.”

As it so happened, Basil had just rejected Petunia yet again, which always put his hackles up. Her brother glared at her briefly before rolling his eyes and turning back to his pack. “Fine.”

Their little gang left early the next morning, Drogo’s signature complaining about the dawn hours a humoring start to their journey. Having Gandalf along was a treat the other three had yet to experience, and many of their nights were spent in stitches around the fireplace as the old wizard told a tale or two, weaving the smoke into figures from his stories. They soon reached Buckland where Drogo’s father gave them a grand table, citing the visit of family as a cause for celebration.

“Don’t listen to him,” Drogo said to Bilba as they ate heartily from the spread along with many of their cousins. “He has this much food out for nearly any occasion. Especially after, well, you know.” A slight silence fell on the table, as it always did at the mention of the Winter.

“Understandable,” Bilba responded, breaking the tension. “It’s nice to see, actually.”

“Nice to eat too,” Basil said from her other side. “I haven’t had stuffed mushrooms like this since, well, since never actually. No offense to your cooking skills, Billy.”

Bilba held in the urge to stick out her tongue as she was a guest. She settled instead for spearing one of said mushrooms on her fork and stuffing it in her mouth. Basil laughed in response and turned back to his own meal.

After selling a few books, they headed to Brandy Hall. The Old Took had invited them for a late dinner when he heard both Bilba and Basil would be in Buckland, which they happily accepted. They didn’t see their family in Buckland as often as the Thain wished, but Bilba could safely say that she went as often as her patience would allow. Gandalf came with them and they left Primula, Drogo, and Tobias to fend for themselves in the slew of younger cousins that rushed for them when they entered the hall.

“My dear girl, we never see you anymore!” her and Basil’s aunt Bellamira said happily when she came to see what all the ruckus was about. “Not since the funeral.” Bilba was about to say something in reply but couldn’t get a word in. “Nevermind that. I assume you’re here to see Father? Well come on then!”

The trio followed the aging hobbit farther into the Hall, Gandalf stooped low. The Old Took’s study was deep in the hill, but they came to it soon enough. What followed was perhaps the most enjoyable evening Bilba had ever experienced with her Grandfather, which was probably because Gandalf was there. “It seems the old wizard has been in the business of luring hobbits away for a very long time,” Bilba said to her brother as they watched the two talk about things long-since passed.

“And to think we thought we were special,” Basil sighed, smiling over his teacup.

When they finally got up to leave, their grandfather called her name and she remained seated. “Yes, Grandfather?”

“Oh, you silly girl. You’re much like your mother,” the Old Took said, smiling kindly. “Not concerned about respectability in the slightest, are you. Well, I have something for you.” He reached down into his desk and pulled out what was certainly a contract, as well as a thick envelope. “This is for you,” he held up the contract. “And this,” the envelope, “for your friends. You lot have helped out your neighbors quite a bit from what I’ve heard. Ah, don’t make that face,” he said before Bilba could do any such thing. “This is just a precautionary measure for if you and your friends would like to operate in a more accredited manner. An armed escort in the Shire without proper authorization and no affiliation with the Bounders might turn some of the nosier heads.” He handed over the two items, which Bilba took carefully. The contract was mostly a statement pertaining to proper recognition of what Bilba and her friends were doing. Bilba looked up at her grandfather skeptically: “I didn’t know our actions were causing such a stir.”

The Old Took laughed and gazed warmly at her. “My dear girl, of course they are. The son and daughter of Bungo Baggins trapezing around the Shire with their friends, armed with bows and knives and swords, offering their protection, has certainly turned some heads. This is me telling you that I am absolutely fine with what you are doing and actively encourage it. I was a bit worried your father might be to slow for dear Belladonna when they first got married, but judging by the way you and Basil turned out, those were unfounded fears. Take the contract, Bilba, and be glad for it. We can call what you're doing a junior Bounder side project or some nonsense. You are still underage, after all. I just need to tell outside parties something about what you all are doing; you know I work with the men sometimes.”

Bilba nodded and stood up, smiling widely. “Thank you, Grandfather. This means a lot.”

“Baah,” he snorted, gesturing with his hands. “Open the envelope. Those cost me a pretty penny, they did.”

Bilba did so and reached into the thick folded paper. Her figures felt something hard and she pulled her hand out. In her palm sat a small metallic badge that was shaped like an oak leaf. “Grandfather, what-”

“Well, the Bounders have those silly hats, so I thought your little group might want something of their own. Think of it as an early birthday gift; you know how I love giving out gifts for my special day.”

“Thank you!” Bilba exclaimed, peering inside the envelope again.

“There are more in there than the number of hobbits you’ve got hanging around you, in case you snare anyone else. And don’t let anyone in Hobbiton give you any grief about knowing your way around a bow. I myself was handy with a sword back in the day. Now go stop your brother from getting into trouble; Yavana knows I’ve got enough of that around here as is.”

Bilba stood and smiled widely. “Yes indeed.” She left the study to find Basil right outside, sitting with his back against the wall. Bilba held up the little badge and Basil raised an eyebrow.

“We’re official now,” she announced, pinning it to the front of her overcoat before giving one to him. “Got Thain’s authority to be an armed escort party. What good luck!”

Basil chuckled and pinned his on as well. “Glad to see this trip wasn’t a total waste.”

“Hey!” Bilba pouted, “I’ve sold quite a few books, I’ll have you know. And that dinner we had was divine.”

Basil rolled his eyes and offered his elbow, which Bilba gladly took. “Gandalf's already gone out, said he could only handle so much hobbitish in one night.”

“Then I suggest we take his lead,” Bilba responded. “We’ll have an early start tomorrow. And we’ve still got to tell everyone else!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I know that this is very late, but I've been very busy. My bike racing season is almost over, however, so after this week the updates should come more quickly. As always, thank you for reading and let me know what you think. Also, if any of you have noticed, I've started a side thing that will contain all flower/plant meanings. That should be fully updated soon and will be updated with each new floral addition. See you next time!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Excitement happens along the Road to Bree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings:  
> Graphic depictions of violence

Morning came soon enough and Basil was loathe to admit that he had not been very careful in the amount of ale he had consumed after Bilba came out of the Thain’s study. His sister had picked up on his down mood that was the product of Grandfather wishing to speak to Bilba alone, and she had taken him out to cheer him up. _Perhaps she did it out of spite instead_ , he thought as he clutched his head while they walked. Their party had been reduced to himself, Gandalf, Bilba, and Tobias; Primula and Drogo had opted to stay behind to discuss something _important_ with Primula’s father. _Have to be a detective to guess what’s going on there,_ Basil thought drolly. Hobbit engagements could last years at times, so it wasn’t all too uncommon to hear of tweens entering into one. Thirty-three seemed an awful long way away when one was in love. Not that Basil knew anything about _that_ , of course. 

The rustling of the trees brought his attention back to the road and he adjusted his pack on his shoulders, eyes trained skywards. He and Bilba hadn't ventured past Buckland very often so the road was only vaguely familiar and left him in a constant state of deja Vu. Gandalf had said that they were on the Great East Road right and proper now, and Basil almost got dizzy when he realized that he could just keep walking and go all the way to Rivendell and beyond on this path. But they were only going to Bree and so such notions were silly to entertain. 

"I daresay we are a quiet bunch this morn. Basil, would you like to pluck us a tune as we walk?"

Basil looked up at Gandalf who had his head tilted back and was staring at him intently. "Alright then, if that's what you'd like." He pulled his mandolin off his pack and settled the strap around his shoulders, mindful of his pack. Thinking for a moment, he recalled a walking tune his mother had taught him and his fingers automatically began to pluck the simple melody. He quickly began to add little embellishments and allowed the song to grow. Bilba began to sing beside him and Basil hid a smile. His sister had no reeds marking her skin but she did have a pleasant voice, one that he enjoyed harmonizing with when she was willing. The familiar hobbitish words washed over him and seemed to brighten the air around them, and Basil let himself get lost in the music. 

Abruptly, Gandalf stopped in front of him. Basil ran into the old wizard and stumbled back: "Gandalf? Why have we stopped?"

“Shh,” Bilba said beside him, her eyes watching the same brush Gandalf was. Tobais stiffened at his other side, pulling out his sword from its sheath. 

Gandalf sighed and relaxed his stance slightly, straightening up. “Perhaps-”

A loud growl cut him off as the bush parted, revealing gleaming yellow eyes and large, dripping fangs. Basil’s blood ran cold and his fingers ached at the familiar sight; it was a _warg._ A warg that was _breaking into their home and oh Yavana their blood was covering the snow and Bilba was dying and-_ a swift punch on his shoulder knocked the dreadful image from his eyes. He looked to see who had hit him and, unexpectedly, Bilba was right there, her eyes wide and angry, liquid fury zinging through their bond almost painfully. 

“Stay behind me,” Gandalf instructed, holding his staff up, face set in a determined line. He seemed even bigger than he actually was, his very presence seeming to fill the space between him and the warg. 

Basil quickly restrapped his instrument and drew his knives while Bilba pulled her bow out and knocked an arrow. Quick as a whip, she let two fly in the span of a moment, their tips burying themselves in the wargs eyes. Blood spurted from its damaged eyes and immediately began to run in rivers down its snout, causing Basil’s stomach to roll. The ugly dog yowled and staggered forward, whining its displeasure as it fully emerged from the undergrowth. Gandlaf hit the creature roughly with his staff and a bright flash of light laid it down in the dirt, unmoving. 

Immediately, his sister was at its side, ripping her arrows from its eye sockets and sticking them back in her quiver, stained and gory. She straightened up, looking around. “What’s a warg doing out in the open, all alone, on the Great East Road in the middle of the day?”

Before Gandlaf could answer, howls that were much too close to comfort sounded out all around them, accompanied by the tell-tale snarl of orcs. 

“Apparently, they’re not alone,” Tobais said dryly. “And here I thought a nice walk would be more relaxing than watching Primula and Drogo suck each other’s faces off.”

“As did everyone,” Gandalf replied. “Up, up, into the trees, I should think.” 

Basil looked to his sister, who’s emotions were running like liquid fire up his arm. She had the _look_ in her eyes, the one that kept her up at night and made her peonies take on that _horrible_ color, like dried blood, like _death-_

“Trees, trees _now,”_ Tobias said, grabbing Bilba’s hand and pulling her forward. “One warg is different than fighting thirty or _more_.”

But before they could even move to ascend the trees around them, more of the fell wolves burst through the bushes, hair bristling. They were saddled with orcs - horrible, ghastly orcs - that had weapons drawn and teeth bared. Basil immediately threw the knife in his right hand, the blade embedding itself between the eyes of the first fell creature. The orc tumbled off its beast and Basil reached for another blade because _this was why they’d been training and he promised he would protect his sister_. 

Gandalf shouted and slammed his staff into the ground, creating a shockwave that momentarily stunned the creatures. In the lapse, the wizard pushed Basil through a gap between two wargs, everyone else following behind. Basil immediately started sprinting up the road, the familiar feel of Bilba and Tobias settling into their strides beside him a welcome comfort. Gandalf brought up the back, continually keeping the orcs at bay. The _twang_ of Bilba’s bow, oddly dull around the sound of his breath in his ears, kept a grisly tempo, and Basil briefly reflected on his apparent useless when the enemy was at his back. He skidded to a stop as an orc jumped out in front of him, and he threw another knife. The blade embedded itself in the orcs raised arm and suddenly _there was snow everywhere and Bilba was hoisted in the air and he couldn’t do anything-_

“Basil!” Bilba cried from behind him and he flinched, barely avoiding a swinging blade. The orc grunted in front of him as a sword tip emerged from its chest and it squealed as it hit the ground. Tobias was standing behind it, face covered in a splash of gore, blood staining his blade. 

“This is no time for day dreams!” he said sternly. “Come on!”

Basil shook himself physically and tried to recenter himself; if he didn’t keep his mind in the present, it really would be the Fell Winter all over again. They ran up the road, legs pumping and lungs burning as the air seemed to become more and more thin. He was immensely glad for all the running around in the Shire he had been doing, or they certainly would have been caught by now. The snarling of the wargs and the horrible cries of their masters chased at their feet like a hellish symphony, and Basil knew that if they didn’t have Gandalf with them, they would not have managed to outrun the beasts as far as they had. 

“ **Faster!** ” Basil heard from behind him, the horrible utterance of the Black Speech like metal grating against shale. “ **These maggots are worth more than all your lives!** ”

Suddenly, a warg jumped across their path, snarling like its rider, and they all skidded to a stop as it growled. Bilba’s fire whistled past his face and embedded itself in the orc’s throat, black, sludge-like blood spurting from the . Basil grabbed another knife and threw hard. And then, with a punch that held to force of a rampaging steed, a firey pain lanced his side. He gasped, knife dropping from his grip as his hands flew to his side to wrap around the familiar shape of an arrow. 

“BASIL!” his sister screamed, voice breaking as she turned and fired more arrows. They flew past him and into the brush where a snarl confirmed her aim to be true. She drew once more and the bow shattered in her grasp with a terrible _crack,_ wood flying everywhere. Basil could see blood coating his sister’s hands where pieces had embedded themselves in her skin. And then the world narrowed down to a point and went dark.

\---

Bilba stared in a daze at the broken bow in her hands. The last arrow it was able to shoot lay embedded in the orc’s skull who had screamed about her and Basil’s _worth_ ; the bow, _Belladonna had given her that bow,_ lay in shatters around her, wooden barbs pierced into her hands, red droplets oozing up around them and down her hands in glistening lines. The string was still intact, laying on the road at her feet where she had dropped it in shock. She looked blankly upwards and saw Basil fall to the ground to land on his back, blood weeping from the arrow in his side and pooling in his clothes and on the ground. A red haze took over Bilba's sight and she screamed. It ripped from her throat and she couldn't really recognize the noise. Had she truly uttered such a cry? 

Running to her brother, she fell to her knees beside him. She didn’t have any real idea what to do in such a situation, beyond her father’s book and her mother’s teachings. But that felt so long ago, when Belladonna had carefully demonstrated how to care for basic injuries. Should she pull out the arrow? If the head was barbed, such an action would do much more harm than good. And with the way the shaft had hit Basil, she couldn’t push it out the other side. _So much good all that reading did you,_ she thought hysterically, ripping at her skirt and bundling the fabric where blood seeped from her brother’s side. Yavvana above, she could hardly see because of the angry tears that fell from her face. Her own side ached fiercely and she grimaced. If that was what a second-hand arrow shot felt like, and she was duly reminded of the wound to her own side that she had received on that dark night. 

“Bilba!” a cry sounded out, and then she was shoved to the ground. Furious, she reached for the sword - _a sword from traveling dwarfs, dwarfs that her father had helped her trade with-_ on her belt, screaming out in a wordless snarl as she struggled against the weight pushing her into the ground. 

“Calm down, it’s just me,” Tobias said, rolling off of her. “Pay attention! You can’t go off in the clouds like Basil did! Now I’ll cover you while you try and patch up your brother---” 

At that moment, Gandalf caught up to them and Bilba staggered to her feet, pushing Tobias out of the way as she did so. “Gandalf!” she cried, “Basil’s been hit! I don’t know what to do about the arrow and---” an arrow whooshed past her ear and she spun around, pulling out her sword and ignoring the numbness in her hand caused by the bow’s forceful shattering. How had she forgotten? They were still surrounded, there were still orcs on all sides, coming for them and _the-snow-was-glittering-in-the-moonlight-and-cries-echoed-all-around-the-Shire-and-her-parents-were-screaming-_

The red haze brightened and Bilba was sure she ran forward, pushing past the undergrowth and into the trees. She couldn’t say for certain though, because when she came back to herself, Gandalf was shaking her, and she was astride a dead orc, sword embedded in its skull. She blanched and tried to pull it out, ignoring the old wizard, until he snapped his fingers and sound besides the pounding of her heart entered the world again.

“--my dear, go back to your brother and do what you can. I will see to him once we are out of immediate danger.” Screams echoed from the trees, high and guttural, and Bilba fought to push the memories away, to gain control of herself again. Finally ripping her sword from the orc’s skull with a sickening _squelch_ , she turned and spotted Tobias up on the road. He was pale, but he stood over her brother firmly, his own sword held high. _I left Basil behind_ , Bilba suddenly realized, feeling sick. She shook her head and nodded to Gandalf before running back to the road, back to her brother. Kneeling next to him, she gave Tobias a grateful look before turning her attention back to Basil

“Don’t worry, I’ll watch your back.” Tobais said, voice strong despite the shake she could see in his knees from her position. She nodded and knelt down again, holding her hands firmly against Basil’s side. And then, new screams entered into her range of hearing. They were loud and clear and incredible _man-like_ ; what men would be near Bree that would care to fight off orcs? _Rangers,_ she thought, looking up. _It must be the Rangers._

It was; men burst onto the road with well worn cloaks and bright eyes. Some were fighting sword to sword with orcs while others merely crossed the road to dive into the undergrowth after Gandalf. Everything was chaos, and then, quiet. No more orc cries, no more Black Speech. Bilba and Tobias watched warily as the Rangers relaxed. One of them began to clean his sword while another unstrung his bow and placed it back in his quiver. At the sight of the bow, Bilba’s wrath rose like a horrible beast inside her. The Mark on her leg _burned,_ and she fought the urge to hack something to pieces because her bow _shattered._ It wasn’t _fair_! She turned her gaze back to her brother and breathed in deep, even breaths as she tried to gain control of herself again. Her hands began to tremble, and she wondered briefly if she was entering some kind of shock. 

Gandalf walked back onto the road and knelt besides Bilba, gently pushing her hands out of the way. “Let me look, my dear,” he said softly. Bilba nodded and scooted back, clutching her hands to her chest. They were dark with drying blood and shaking. 

A Ranger settled besides them as Gandalf, hands glowing so faintly Bilba wasn’t sure if they truly were, yanked the arrow from Basil’s side. Her brother’s breathing hitched but he remained unconscious. The Ranger gasped as he beheld the wicked arrow head. “ _May the Valar preserve us, that is a Morgul shaft! What is that doing in the hands of an orc?_ ”

Bilba looked to Gandalf, who stared darkly at the arrow before blowing on it. It dissipated into dust and he wiped his hand on his cloak before turning his attention back to Basil. “What indeed.” He pushed the fabric back onto the wound and spoke under his breath, eyes closed. Bilba felt a slight energy gather in the air, static lightning trailing lightly across her skin, before it disappeared and Basil seemed to breathe easier. She rushed forward and checked for the feel of his heartbeat. It was there, but it wasn’t strong. 

“What are we to do?” Bilba asked, looking up to Gandalf. “What does the arrow being Morgul have to do with anything?”

Gandalf closed his eyes and sighed. “We must go to Rivendell. I cannot heal this alone.”

“Rivendell?” Tobias said, voice sounding off, sounding _panicked_ in her ear. “That’s farther than Bree.”

Bilba felt a hysterical laugh begin to build in her throat and the word was going red again. “Maybe the elves would like one of my books,” she said, voice oddly high. Valar above, she hoped Gandalf was as magical as he claimed to be or her brother would die. She could tell that much, even if she didn’t know what a _Morgul shaft_ was. Glancing at her brother again, she felt the Mark they shared burn slightly, and she felt fear curl in her heart like it hadn’t in three years. 

\---

When Basil woke up, it was to the bright light of sunshine and cold feeling, like ice, originating from his side. He absentmindedly touched the spot and groaned as a sharp barb of pain ran up his body. Immediately, movement to his left caught his eye, and Tobias settled at his side, placing a hand on his chest.

“Don’t move over much, my friend,” he said, his gaze burning with concern. “They just packed your wound, and we wouldn’t want you to dislodge your sister’s good work, would we?”

Basil relaxed under Tobias’ hand and glanced about, “Where is she?” he tried to ignore the small pit that opened in his stomach as he realized he couldn’t see her. 

Tobias smiled and shifted his weight so he was on his knees. “She’s with Gandalf and the leader of the Ranger patrol that saved our sorry skin. They’ve offered two horses for our use, so we can get to Rivendell.”

Basil scrunched up his nose, confusion curling through the haze of pain that was beginning to settle upon his conscience. “Why would we need to go to Rivendell?”

“Because the arrow was poisoned,” his sister responded, startling Basil as she sat near his other side. “Gandalf says he can’t heal it by himself.” Deep worry collected in his sister’s eyes, and Basil felt unease crawl up the flowers on his wrist. “But don’t worry. Everything will be alright.”

Basil nodded, beginning to feel the call of unconsciousness beckon him again. He allowed his eyes to close and allowed sleep to claim him; if he let the words on his lips, _You sound like Mother when she lied,_ sink into the dark depths of his mind, no one was aware of it but him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm still alive! And more importantly, this story is still alive, don't worry.  
> With school started again, my posting schedule has obviously slowed down, and I won't be able to speed it up for a while. But rest assured, I hope to make multi-month breaks a very uncommon thing.  
> I hope you liked this chapter. Obviously, Ooc Bilba is ooc, but you signed up for that, right?  
> I know, Morgul stuff is a trope, but hey, it works. I promise there's a reason for it, don't worry.  
> Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Road to Rivendell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning:  
> Mentions of past traumas

Basil didn't wake up much as they traveled, and when he did, he wasn't always there. His gaze wandered and his sentences unwound as he said them, spilling from his mouth like unspooled thread. The wound was painful, and Bilba murmured sweet nothings to him when they stopped for the night, often times holding him close as he shivered. Her own side seemed to never warm, an echo of her brother’s wound, and a constant ache sapped her strength. The horses the Rangers lent them were strange underneath Bilba, with the stirrups altered to fit her height, the height of a man-child, and she often sat cross-legged upon the horse she shared with Tobais, rather than astride, to ease the ache in her hips. She only chose to sit with the horse between her legs when it was urged into a gallop

Basil’s skin gained a heated look and burned against her hand as they approached Bree, only one day after the attack. Whatever poison lay upon the Morgul shaft was persistent in its deadly purpose, fighting against the magics Gandalf continued to cast upon it as they rode. When they finally stopped at the man-habited and bustling town of Bree, it was only to procure food and supplies for the longer journey, and herbs for Basil. For the entirety of their brief stop in the village, Bilba felt like they were being watched, and she could hardly be convinced to let Basil out of her grasp. As soon as they got the supplies, she nearly pushed Tobias and Gandalf to the horses at swordpoint. And then they were truly off, with only a few hodge-podge dwellings between them and Rivendell. They had entered the Wilderness.

Basil continued to decline. He was worse when they stopped during the night and the cool of the starlit darkness above them crept into the air and the earth. Basil’s breath came shallower then, and his eyes tracked something no one else could see. Or, perhaps, almost no one. In the shadows of the night, she kept  _ seeing things _ . Perhaps they were the same forms that haunted her brother. She would whirl around, sword drawn and a shout perched upon her lips, only to find emptiness, and pity in the eyes of her companions. As she continued to do this, Tobias began to take watch instead. Although Bilba huffed about this more than once, she was grateful to him, because instead of watching the darkness, she could sit by Basil instead, and tend to him when he needed her too. 

Another thing stalked her mind in the silence, restless and snarling, although it was much more real than the apparitions she saw. The word the orc-captain had said lay heavy upon her thoughts. He had mentioned a  _ price _ , a price that was upon her and Basil’s heads. _ Worth more than your lives,  _ Bilba remembered the leader growling to his underlings before she sent him to whatever afterlife awaited such vile creatures. What price could she and her brother possibly be worth to a pack of disgusting orcs? She voiced her question aloud to Gandalf as they sat around the fire; Basil’s gaze was clearer that night - he even sat up with them, though he shivered and shivered despite the three bed-rolls that lay upon his shoulders.

“Are you sure the orc mentioned a price?” the wizard asked, the light from his pipe embers catching in his eyes. 

“As sure as the Sun in her path,” Bilba replied, tucking Basil under her arms in an attempt to provide further warmth.

“I thou’ I heard it too,” her brother said, his voice barely audible over the gently crackle of the fire. “Of course, my wor’ isn’ much for worth…” he trailed off, gaze tracking the unknown. 

“A price mentioned by orcs is  _ very _ bad,” Tobias said, settling on Basil’s other side and twining his arms around her brother. “That means you could be hunted. There could be more out there with you and Basil’s picture in their filthy pocket, scouring the roads of the East for any sign of you.”

“That is what I am afraid of,” Gandalf sighed, running a hand through his beard. “And there is only one event I can bring to mind that might have inspired such a price.”

Bilba shivered as Gandalf’s words washed over her. When had she ever encountered an orc before? There was only one answer to that question.

“Not the Fell Winter,” Tobias gasped, his eyes to deep for Bilba to tell what he was thinking. “That happened over three winters ago! Why would we only be seeing the effects of this price now?”

“Because we haven’t left the Ranger’s patrol border since That Night,” Bilba responded, holding Basil closer. “They didn’t mention a dramatic increase in orc groups, so the Rangers could have thought they were just ordinary packs. Maybe they were,” she sighed and hugged her brother closer. “Whatever the answer may be, we have to be on our guard.”

Gandalf  _ hmmmed _ in response with a look in his eyes so much more ancient than even his wizened frame suggested. Bilba pulled her brother closer and fought back memories of a pale orc with an arrow wound through the eye. 

-

During the day, Bilba’s thoughts were lighter. Basil rode tucked under Gandalf’s steady arm, and Tobias sat behind her, arms wrapped around her waist as they galloped down the road. The warm sunlight - the fresh green air - cleared her mind and seemed to ease Basil’s misery. Her hips had stopped aching at the end of every day, and, after what she thought was a week past her brother’s injury, the general demands of travel on the road didn’t seem so challenging. They paused briefly on the road as Gandalf pointed out the Old Watchtower of Weathertop. Bilba got the feeling that, had they not been in such a terrible hurry, he would have wanted to stop there. As it was however, they simply continued onwards.

Basil began to stabilize after they passed the old watchtower. His fever stopped increasing, his sleep was easier, and though Bilba still felt the watered down flares of pain, the echoes of her brother’s, they weren't as difficult to handle as they had been right after the attack. But the nights got worse for Bilba. The things she saw grew in size and number, and their red eyes haunted her. 

Basil was aware after she startled awake from a particularly bad nightmare, and he reached for her hand. She clasped it with the fervor of a drowning hobbit and turned to face him. 

“Nightmares? Isn’t that my thing?” he joked weakly, his voice rattling in his chest. “Want to talk?”

Bilba inched closer to him so she was on his sleep roll, making sure to keep his hand in her grasp. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she whispered, attention caught on the dying embers of the fire. “Things prowl in the Shadows of the day, and they find me in the night.” Her eyes flicked to his and she sighed, “I’m sorry. I’m not the one with poison in her blood. How are you doing?” Please don’t leave me, she wanted to say.  _ Please don’t leave me. _

He shifted and looked away. “The Darkness whispers,” he looked at her, and his face, she noticed, was pale again. “It doesn’t let me rest. Always, it whispers,” he squeezed her hand. “But It’s quiet right now. And in my sleep, It can’t always find me. It’s always better when you hold me.” 

So that’s what Bilba did, and she thanked the Valar that her brother wasn’t lost yet.

\--- 

On one of her watches, deep into the night, when all light seemed to fade from the world, she thought she saw her parents run past, their laughter catching in her ears as they dissipated like smoke. And on the edge of her hearing, she thought she could make out words. Deadly words, filled with hate, and in the Dark Speech. Hardly able to breath, Bilba could only rub at the mark on her thigh and grip her sword harder as she tried to push the memories away, the  _ voices _ . She startled when Tobias sat beside her and pulled the sword from her hands. By Yavanna, she missed her bow. He set it beside him and put a hand on her shoulder, locking his gaze with her. 

“Go rest. I can take this watch.” It was a phrase he spoke to her often.

Bilba knew better than to protest, and so she simply nodded and stood to check on Basil before bedding down in her own sleep roll. Her dreams, like they had been since the ambush, were filled with unholy forms that swept through the landscape of her mind, leaving only half-remembered destruction in their wake. 

When she awoke the next morning, feeling like she had hardly slept at all, it was to a sharp pain at her wrist. She grabbed her hand with an intake of pain, thinking it to be some woodland creature that had thought to bite her, but her right hand met nothing of that sort. She lifted her fingers to gaze at the offending extremity and gasped, closing her fingers again. The first flower in the chain that ran up her arm, the one that sat in the palm of her hand, had turned a  _ putrid black _ . She scrambled to her feet and nearly tripped over Gandalf as he sat preparing their quick breakfast. She could barely hear Tobias’s shout of surprise as she stumbled to Basil’s side and grabbed his arm, turning it over so she could see his morning glory chain. She dropped his arm in shock, feeling faint as she felt her face pale. 

“My dear, whatever is the matter?” Gandalf asked, settling beside her. 

Bilba shook her head, unable to find words, and laid her hand next to her brother’s. Gandalf gasped, and Tobias, on her other side, gagged at the sight of Basil’s flowers. From the inside of his elbow all the way to his palm, the flowers were the same foul, rotten black as Bilba’s. 

“The curse has taken a darker turn,” Gandalf said, running a hand over both their palms. “The Morgul poison is old magic, and much of the understanding of it has been lost. And with the bond you two share, I fear…” he trailed off, his eyes unreadable.

“No,” Tobias said beside her, his warm brown eyes filled with determination. “That won’t happen. We’ll make it to Rivendell in time,” he grasped Bilba’s shoulder again, and the contact displaced some of the haze that had settled on her mind. 

“I have no intention of giving up,” Gandalf said, standing up and patting down his robes. He grabbed his staff and held it above Bilba and Basil’s heads; the white stone at the top of his gnarled staff lit briefly as he chanted under his breath, and something eased in Bilba’s heart. Some great weight she hadn’t even noticed dissipated, and she pulled in a deep breath before looking at her brother’s arm again. The morning glory that sat upon his palm was a diluted greyish blue which, while it held no resemblance to the former deep cobalt, looked better than the sickly flowers above it. Bilba looked at her own flower and saw it now held the same blue-grey color as her brother’s. 

“We must continue,” Gandalf stated, his eyes showing the truthfulness of his age like they hadn’t in a long time. “There isn’t a moment to lose.”

-

They rode harder, and the land swept past them like a river in . They only stopped to feed and water the horses, pushing them as hard as they could go without giving out before the journey’s end. Bilba’s mare, who she had finally decided to name Molly, seemed to fair better than Gandalf’s stallion; she supposed it was the weight difference. Nights got worse and worse for Bilba, and Basil no longer responded to much. His fever began to climb again, and despite Gandalf’s constant spells, the Blackness in Basil’s side of the bonded flowers continued to spread to Bilba’s own, try though the wizard did to stymie the spread. As midday approached on the second day after the Blackness was discovered, they crested a low hill and came upon a large plain with long grasses that swayed in the gentle breeze. 

“These grasslands signify the beginning of Rivendell’s borders,” Gandlaf said, slowing down briefly so Bilba and Tobias could hear him. “We should reach the Last Homely House by nightfall.”

They sped off again, and a wave of dizziness swept over Bilba, nearly causing her to pitch over the side of the horse. Luckily, Tobias noticed and steadied her, pulling her more firmly against him so he could take the reigns. 

“Thanks,” she said, briefly closing her eyes to try and push off the growing nausea. 

“Of course,” he responded, glancing at her and smiling. She smiled back, before looking at her chain of morning glory. Another flower had darkened. She sighed and closed her eyes again, praying to Yavvana for strength. 

As Gandlaf predicted, they crossed the stream that marked the beginning of Rivendell’s dwellings as the sun began to lower. By that point, Bilba could hardly sit up straight for the throbbing pain that had started up again at her side, and as she looked at her brother, she could only hope that the master of Rivendell could help them. The horses trotted into a courtyard and Gandalf dismounted carefully as an elf came out to greet them. His hair was as dark as the moonless night, and his skin reminded Bilba of the alabaster stone that made up her Grandfather’s kitchen table. As Tobias carefully helped her off Molly’s back, she noticed that a soft glow seemed to surround him. Looking around, she realized that the same glow covered much of what she could see. It comforted her. 

“ _ Mithrandir,”  _ the elf said coolly, his hands clasped. “ _ What does the Grey Wizard seek of Rivendell today? _ ”

“ _ Erestor, we are in dire need of Elrond’s skill, _ ” Gandalf said, his accent much more formal to Bilba’s ears than when Gandlaf spoke to her in the Elven language. Gandalf revealed Basil to the elf, Erestor, and he stiffened. 

“ _ I will take you to him at once,”  _ he announced. 

“What are they saying,” Tobias asked by her side as he half supported her weight. Bilba and Tobias began to follow Gandlaf through Rivendell and she said “That elf is taking us to Elrond, whose skill in the healing arts is unparalleled in Middle Earth. I read that in one of Gandalf’s history books.” her tongue felt looser than it usually did, but she didn’t pay it much mind. “Hopefully he can help us.”

Tobias nodded and his hand that was wrapped around her hip tightened. “May Yavvana bless this place if he can.”

“Yavvana has probably already blessed this place,” she muttered as they followed the elf, passing through archway after beautiful archway. When this was all over ( _ when, not if)  _ she could tell she would have a wonderful time exploring. 

“Ha!” Tobias snorted besides her, smiling brightly. “Perhaps so, Miss Baggins. Perhaps so.”

Bilba felt a lightness enter her heart, and a hopefulness. Basil would make it, she was sure. And then she, him and Tobias could explore Rivendell together. 

_ Hold on, little brother,  _ she thought.  _ We’ll save you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What ever am I going to do with these poor hobbits?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The House of Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the support of this story! Every kudos and view is a little jolt of happiness for me.

“Basil, come back from the window,” Belladonna said from her place by the fire. 

Basil started, only just realizing that his forehead was resting against the cold glass pane of one of the living room windows. He turned and saw his mother sitting in her favorite armchair, a pile of yarn in her lap. In the other chair sat his father, who had a book in his hands.

_Books, she loves books, Bil-_

Basil shook his head from the momentary lance of pain and went to sit at his mother’s feet. She began to hum a tune as she carded her fingers through his hair, a tune that-

_He had written for her after a long day sitting with them-_

“Is something wrong, Basil?” his mother asked, hands continuing their soothing motion-

_Something that she did all the time, especially when-_

“No Ma,” he responded, tucking his legs under his feet. “It’s just - I feel like I’m forgetting something.”

“Well,” Bungo said, turning a page of his book. “If you forgot it, then it must not be very important. If it comes back, then you’ll know that -

_It really meant something to you, she said so often, sounding just like their father-_

He sprung up, whirling around. “Something isn’t right. Where’s-” he could not recall the name, only that she was important to him. He clenched his right hand, and then opened it to study his palm. It was smooth skin until-

_That night in the rain when he was scared of the thunder and-_

“Bilba!” he cried out, spinning around to face his parent again. “Where is Bilba?”

“Whoever do you mean, sweet pea?” his father asked, finally looking up from his book. 

Sweet pea. That was what Bungo called Bilba, not Basil. Basil shook his head and backed away. “What do you mean? She’s my sister, your daughter!”

Belladonna broke out into laughter and shook her head. “Sister? Whatever gave you that notion?”

Basil looked back to his palm. The morning glories sat there, only they were sickly and dark, almost like they were sucking in the light around them. He turned back to the window and realized that Beyond was pitch black, matching his palm in coloring. He shuddered. 

“Come back from the window, dear. There’s nothing to be worried about.” his mother said, in that voice of hers that possessed such a commanding aura that he turned from the window and sat at her feet.

“You’re just tired, sweetheart, after-”

_An arrow through the side, its fletchings oily and rank compared to Bilba’s beautiful fletchings that she had crafted on a sunny afternoon -_

“-a long day. Fret not, I’m here.”

“ _No she’s not. Remember the night, that awful night of snow and blood-”_

-and orcs spilling into their home, and his mother shoving him out of the door and _screaming-_

 _“Yes, come on Basil. This isn’t real, come on,_ remember _!-”_

He stood up again and faced his mother, aware now of the fact that the fire was not the roaring heat that it was when he and Bilba sat before it, but instead cold, its pale flames leaching warmth from the room. He breathed out and watched as his breath clouded in front of him, and he frowned. 

His mother looked up at him, with eyes so familiar and features that felt like home-

 _Features that twisted into a blank face and blank eyes, covered in blood in his dreams, in his_ nightmares _-_

He stumbled as he stood back up and turned to face the window again. Beyond, where he couldn’t see before, there was a faint light, so dim that he wasn’t sure he was seeing it.

“Don’t you love us enough to stay?” 

He glanced towards his mother, heart aching ( _side aching terribly)_ as he gazed upon her. She had stood up, the yarn pooling at her feet, only it didn’t look like yarn now, it looked like roped, like ribbons of darkness, like _snakes_ -

“Little Wish, come and stay.”

“ _No, don’t. Basil, don’t. They aren’t_ real”

He looked behind him. The light was brighter for a moment, and then a great sweeping wind seemed to dim it slightly. 

“If you stay, there will be no more pain.” his mother whispered, and the word echoed all around - _pain, pain, pain-_ like a grisly chorus. Belladonna didn’t look right now. Her features had shifted, with eyes narrowed and teeth _sharper._ Basil uneasily realized that while his own breath clogged the air in front of him, his parents' did not. 

“Son, don’t you want to stay? Stay with us, where you won’t ever have to think for yourself again. You can be

 **_f̸̢̛͙̣͚̖̋̂̾̾͐ŗ̧̢͎̲͉̦͕́̃̏̎̾̔̈̊͗͜͞ě͍̠͇̮̳̍͗̃͆͊̋ͅě͇̱̜̠͐̒̒͋̋̕͟_ ** _”_

Basil shuddered, and the windows rattled with the force of the gale outside. “No, I don’t think I want this.”

“Basil,” his mother held open her arms. “Its us.”

_“No, it's not them brother, they’re something else please-”_

“No, its not,” he said, clutching his head as the wind slammed against the windows, howling like _wolves._ He looked at the woman, the _thing_ that looked like his mother. “You’re gone. And I don’t want to follow you.” He had too much to do, too much to live for. He had Bilba and his friends and he had never been in love before. Never even kissed felt lips on his own, beyond that of his familys'. The woman, who was morphing into something else, snarled and hissed. The man stood up, eyes yellowing and hands sharpening into claws. 

**_Y͍̞̗̻̣͖̠͙͊̓͂̑̽̃ǫ̸̛͉̭̙̗̖̤̲̺͕̇̌̊̆͂̍̊͘ư̶̡̫͉̜͉͚͗́́̇̎̏͒͘͟ͅͅ b̧̦͍͙̬͉́̀̒̈̈̽̏̔͝e̢̨̳͓̪̭͖̦͖̐̾̅͗͋͜l̵̛̼̣̬͉͒̓̓͆̂̊͢͞͠ǫ̢̦̘̙̻͚͈̍͌̇͑̀̍͢͜͞n̵̛̦͓͓̲͓̼͎̻̊͊̑̾̇̈́̈̄͜g̷̲̤̗͉̐̎͌̐͘͟ t̡̧̠̪̤̯̥̱̉͂̈́̌̂͒̾̆̃͘͟õ̮͓̼̳̱͕̏̍̎͞ H̶͇͇̞̱͖̯̪̝̯̭̎̂̔̈̽i̧̧̞̳̝̫̓̌̂̑̄͑͊̕͞͞ͅͅm̷͇̥̟͖̠̏͂̂͋̀̂͟͟͟!̡̞͓̥̻̯̲̽͛͛̏̕_ **they shrieked, crouching down.

  
  


Basil could hardly hold back the scream building up in his throat. He turned to the door and ran, grabbing the knob and turning. The wind shrieked louder and the door burst open. He threw his arm across his face and stepped into the Void of wind and darkness.

**_Basil_ ** _,_ he heard, and the voice was unfamiliar, yet warm and so different from the Presence that followed at his heels. **_I can assist you in this fight, but it is_ ** **you** **_who must choose to continue on_ ** _._

 _Come on Basil,_ another voice chimed, familiar, full of love. _You've survived worse than this. I’m so proud of you. Just go a little farther. You can make it._ Bilba. His sister. He missed her, missed running through the Shire at her heels with their friends. He missed his music, and the feel of the sun and the smell of the Gamgee's garden after a rainstorm. The wind around him slowed, and though he could feel _It_ chasing after him, they were losing ground. 

All these thoughts seemed to brighten the light, drive back the darkness, and he tried to step forward again, pushing desperately against the wind. He moved towards them, his sister and the unfamiliar presence, the light, as fast as he could.

_Come on, little brother,_ Bilba, his truest friend, his sister, taunted. _I always could beat you in a race._

The comment startled a laugh from Basil's lips and the gloom and the wind was pierced with a bright whiteness. _They_ shrieked, hatred and malice shaking him to his core as the light swept past him and into the darkness behind. The wind seemed to abate, and the loss of its resistance made him stumble forward. He landed in familiar, _safe,_ arms, and knew no more. 

-

“--at if it didn’t work? There’s no sign of him waking at all!”

“Bilba _please_ , control yourself. Master Elrond is the finest healer in all of Middle Earth. If he claims that Basil is recovered, then believe him.”

“ _Humph_ . Well, he does look less pale. And that was some fine magic, and make no mistake Master Elrond. Make _no_ mistake.”

Basil opened his eyes, amused at his sister’s tone. He was in a bed with white linens and soft pillows. Above his head, a pale sandal wood ceiling dwelt, carved in intricate patterns that his eyes, blurry as they still were, couldn’t trace. At the foot of his bed stood three figures, two tall, one short. He blinked, trying to clear the fog from his gaze, and the indistinct outlines morphed into his sister, Gandalf, and the willowy form of an elf. It was to the elf that Bilba’s petulant tone was directed, and Basil held back a laugh. “It’s hard to get any paler than I was, so maybe Bilba has a point.”

His sister gasped and spun around, face slack with shock. He noticed dark bruises under her eyes and her curls were a wild mass atop her head, frizzed up in a halo of riotous fuzz. She put her hands to her face and liquid began to pool in her eyes, sparkling like dew drops in the soft glow that lit the room. She ran to his side and nearly leapt upon him in her excitement, but Basil didn’t mind over much. Her arms, carefully wrapped around his shoulder so as not to disturb the faint ache in his abdomen, were a welcome and familiar weight. He hugged her back, allowing himself to breath in her familiar scent. Gone was the weariness of the road and it's travels, and good sitters stuff before him, whole again. He briefly thought of the Darkness, the _Things_ and how they had nearly claimed him, and he shuddered. He had forgotten Bilba, if only for a moment. He never wanted to forget her again. But then, his sister’s emotions, honey-sweet happiness and a bubbling joy, drove away dark thoughts. He let himself feel awe at the sheer intensity of her feelings. He had never _tasted them_ before.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, pulling away and placing her hands on his forehead, an action that had often annoyed him in the past, but which now brought only a feeling of peace. He focused on her question and assessed his body. Besides the ache in his abdomen, which felt no worse than the day after a particularly hard bought of laughter, he felt no ailments. In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time.

“I feel like a daisy in the springtime,” he responded, reaching up to grab her hand and squeezing it. “A right deal better then you look. You could hide tomatoes in the circles 'round your eyes.”

She hugged and glared at him, a familiar glare with no heat to it. "And it's all your fault, brother-mine. Don't you forget _that_ anytime soon."

“And see, I told you so Bilba,” Gandalf grouched halfheartedly, approaching Basil’s other side. “Elrond is a Master.”

The elf in question chuckled and steepled his fingers over his abdomen. “High praise from the Wandering Wizard,” he fixed his gaze on Basil. “Welcome to Rivendell, Master Basil.”

Basil was struck speechless by the elf lord's full attention, and he was suddenly aware that he was still lying down while Elrond watched him with a face like carved stone. Lord Elrond had hair of the deepest black, but no malice lingered in its ominous shade. No wailing wind or howling wolves. Instead, it was like the Void that rested between the Stars, vast and otherworldly, but gentle. His face, however, was like light, the light of the stars, and if Basil looked closely, he could swear the elf was glowing a faint shimmer starlight. 

“You were who I saw in the Darkness,” he realized, eyes widening. 

The elf nodded, his gaze so full of years gone by Basil was sure he would get lost if he looked too long. “Yes. But do you remember anything else?”

Basil hesitantly brought his experience back to mind, careful not to dwell too long on the Darkness and _them_ : “I don’t think so-”

“Think hard, little brother,” Bilba said, taking his hand. “Think _hard_.”

Astonished by his sister’s insistence, nevertheless, Basil did as she asked. He recalled how the arrow had hit him, _fire-buring-fire-scream-he-was-on-fire_ , and how he had ridden on a horse, tucked under Gandal’s sturdy grasp. He remembered conscious thought flickering in and out between figures shifting in the darkness - _mother-and-father-bleeding-out-blood-everywhere-red-blood-cold-blood-_ and how Bilba had held him and then the Darkness engulfing him-

Sharply, a deep throb erupted in his skull and then-

 _“What do we do?” Bilba asked, wringing her hands at the thought of her brother’s fate. He was lying so still on the white bed, peaceful besides his laborious breathing and the black veins that spidered from his abdomen and towards his heart. Elrond looked at her with grave, sad eyes and gently packed more of the herb (_ kingsfoil, Belladonna had taught her. Good for brightening even the most gloomy of days) _into the wound. Her own stomach throbbed at the motion and she cringed, nausea flooding her senses and upsetting her stomach. Tobias placed a hand on her shoulder, and his grounding presence allowed her to avoid falling to her knees. But Elrond noticed her discomfort and was at her side quicker than she could blink, elfin movements as fluid as a fish in water._

_“Tell me you are not also injured?” he said, concerned etching into his brow._

_Bilba shook her head, feeling at last the fatigue of the road began catch up to her: “No, it is only a sympathetic pain. Basil and I are connected, you see.”_

_“Hobbits are amazing creatures,” Gandalf piped up, placing a hand on her other shoulder. “Bilba and Basil, when they were young, forged a soul-bond, something I have only seen accomplished in Hobbits. Elves achieve something similar, as you are aware, but this is different. It has something to do with the flowers that mark their skin.”_

_Bilba turned her gaze to Basil, whose mourning glory’s darkness had begun to spread to his other flowers. The hawkweed on his fingers, once such a bright color, had dulled to an unhappy grey tone._

_“Yes. These are the flowers we share,” she said, returning her attention to Elrond and pulling up her sleeve. Her own morning glory were almost completely black._

_“If he falls, I fear that he will pull Bilba too into the abyss.” Gandalf said solemnly. Bilba’s knees shook at his statement, and Tobias took her arm and slung it over his shoulder. Gandalf had hinted at what he said before, but hearing the words out loud made her fate, and her brother's, so much more real._

_The elf leaned closer, wrapping his hand around her wrist and inspecting the blooms._

_Bilba resolutely ignored the immense breach of privacy Elrond had just performed, and fought back a shudder at his grasp. The flowers, especially those forged between hobbits, were sensitive and often painful if touched by any beside the one with whom the bond was forged. Tobias squeezed her arm, and she took in a deep breath: “No, both Basil and my own blossoms are normally blue in color. This only began to happen a few days after the arrow struck my brother.”_

_Elrond closed his eyes and tightened the grip he had on her arm. Bilba’s vision whited out at the touch, and Tobias quickly slipped his arms under hers, supporting her._

_“Watch it,” he near-growled. “The flowers are_ not _for casual touch.”_

 _“It’s alright,” Bilba murmured to him. “This isn’t normal. This hasn’t happened before.” No, it had not. Never had she felt such a strange_ pain _in the center of her blooms. She suspected the evil poison was doing it's work well._

_“Your bond,” Elrond said, loosening his grip. “You are suffering from the enchantment as well. But you are not succumbing as quickly.” He let go of her arm and turned to Gandalf. “Do you know much of these bonds?”_

_“More so that any besides the Little Folk who bear them,” the wizard said, leaning on his staff._

_Elrond nodded and turned to Basil: “Your brother is far into the Darkness. I can scarcely feel his presence in this world. If he were any other, I would, with a heavy heart, do my best to bring him back, and ultimately fail, unless by some great grace if the Valar. For he has carried this poison in his blood for, as your report, over fifteen days of hard riding. But,” he turned back to Bilba. “Because of your bond, I believe I can still save him. However, it will affect the strength of your Bond. If this is to succeed, your souls will be so entwined, I do not know if you will remain separate individuals. It very well could drag you into the Darkness as well. But I suspect that, should we do nothing, the same will happen. And with no wound to purge, I fear I could not help you as easily, try though I would.”_

_Bilba was shocked, but not surprised. Ever since her Flowers had begun to change, she knew that her fate would reflect her brother’s. Gandalf had stated that she might be lost. And if Basil was lost, she would be as well, because she would not allow their bond to be seperated. She would rather join her brother in whatever fate awaited them in the Darkness than continue on without him. So she squared her shoulders and faced the elf with steel in her gaze: “Whatever it takes. I won’t leave him behind.”_

_“Bilba, this has never been done before,” Gandalf said, his gaze heavy._

_She smiled, “I know, dear friend. But you know me well enough that you’ll respect my decision.” She turned to Tobias, who had been so helpful, such an important presence to her while they traveled. “If we both don’t make it, I want Bag End to pass to you, and to Primula and Drogo. It is a large home, and even if you all decide to live together, there will be plenty of room. Even when you marry.”_

_“Bilba,” he said, eyes wide. “I can’t accept that! How could you expect me to accept that? Your father_ built _that house for your mother. You and Basil built it back up after the Fell Winter. Passing it to Drogo makes sense; he is your cousin after all. But me? Why-”_

_“Shh,” Bilba chuckled. “Tobias, you stubborn lump. Just accept that I want you to have it. You’ve been an amazing friend, one of my best friends. You deserve this.” She turned to Elrond. “Do what you have too.”_

_Elrond nodded. Something sat in his gaze, but she couldn’t tell what it was, beside the fact that it wasn’t malicious. If she didn’t know any better, she would almost call it amusement. Perish the thought. And elf, amused? He nodded and gestured for her to step forward. She turned to Tobias and smiled, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. As she turned to stand before Elrond, Tobias grabbed her hand._

_“Nightshade” he said, placing her hand gently on his hip. “Right here. Nightshade was my first.”_

_Bilba smiled gently. Nightshade. She wondered at the story behind it, for such bitter truths were rare in the Shire. Something_ zinged _up her palm from where it rested on his hip. It was warm and bubbly; she thought it might be something she could like. “Beautiful. Thank you, Tobias.”_

 _He nodded, eyes soft, and Bilba turned to face Elrond, and her brother. She took a deep breath and walked forward._ _  
__“Take his hand, the one that shares your flowers. And then relax. Gandalf and I will try to guide you. I will not lie, this has never been attempted before, and before this moment, I was unaware it_ could _be attempted.”_

_“We’ll be here the whole time,” Gandalf said, approaching her. She looked into his eyes, the eyes she had known since she was biting ankles, and nodded. She trusted her wizard, even with his flaws. Even with his most grievous error, the one that cost her parents their lives, she trusted him._

_Elrond grabbed her wrist and with his other hand, grabbed Basil’s. She held her breath for a moment against the sensation and them let it out, sending a prayer to Yavvana for strength and protection._

_“_ I call upon the Valar for their strength, their wisdom. I call for the Maker, Illvultar, to watch over His children. Drive away the Enemy, and let Light once again inhabit this child.” _Elrond’s elvish was lilting, like a stream or the wing in the trees, as Bilba listened. He changed dialects, and she could no longer understand the flowing language. As he spoke, she could almost feel the ages of the world pressing down upon her, forcing her down to some place she did not know. Gandlaf joined in with the chant and power filled the room, raising the hair on Bilba’s arms. From behind, she could hear Tobias, lovely, nightshade-marked Tobias, gasp. And then, she was Somewhere else. It was Dark, and she/he was so cold, until he saw her/Bilba and she/Bilba pulled her/him from the Dark-_

Basil gasped and ripped his conscious from the vision. Sweat ran down his face and pooled in his hair, burned his eyes. He looked to Bilba and then manically pulled at his right sleeve, fumbling with the laces that held it firm. He finally undid them and ripped the sleeve upwards, revealing his Flowers. They were once again blue, blue like the river and the stream and the open sky. Blue like they had been for most of his life.

“Billy?” he said, voice small to his ears. 

His sister was at his side in an instant: “Oh Basil, please don’t be mad at me! Lord Elrond couldn’t save you otherwise. I know I didn’t ask you, but please, oh please be okay with this.”

He grabbed her hand, stilling her words. “Thank you.”

She nodded, and wrapped him carefully into a hug. She pulled back and laced her left hand with his right. “Look at your palm.”

He pulled his hand from hers and looked like she asked. Nestled in the palm of his hand, a pure white morning glory sat, the first one in the line. He looked up to Bilba and saw that hers echoed his own. 

“Looks like we’re truly in this forever,” he said, nearly holding back a laugh. 

Bilba, never one to hide her mirth, let her happiness bubble forth. By Yavvana, he could _taste it,_ so strong was the surge of emotion. It startled his laugh right out of him, and he pulled her in for another hug, remembering the night they first made the bond, so many years ago. Who would have known it would have such lasting consequences. 

“We’ll be alright,” she whispered into his ear.

Basil believed her, and hugged her tighter. She had promised she would never lie to him, after all. They would be alright. 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Frodo's journey from Bree to Rivendell took three weeks to complete. This was under the guidance of Aragon, and they took the paths of the wilderness to escape the Nazgul. For me, I think it is logical to say that two horses with relatively light loads could, at the pace they were set at in my fic, cover that same distance and cut a week off. 
> 
> *Basil's fever dream is something I've been wanting to write for a long time. I hope I got across what I wanted to. I've always thought that because of the nature of the poison, it would try anything to convert its host to the Darkness. Merely Head Canon, but I think it fits. 
> 
> As always, all mistakes are mine.  
> If anyone is interested, I could use a beta-reader. You'd have to be up to active discussion about my fic though, as I can get grammer analysys from Grammarly. If you're interested, email me at echomoonstone28217@gmail.com
> 
> This chapter was hard for me to write, especially since it signifies that this fic is, by my plans, about half way done. Then we will dive right into the Hobbit, which I have begun to plan out. 
> 
> Thank you for the read!
> 
> What EchoMoonstone is reading:  
> Sansukh by determamfidd - A great bagginsheild and gimli/legolas fic that is chalk full of dwarven lore, and amazing character development. It is over 500k words long, and a great work of LOTR fiction

**Author's Note:**

> What do you think? Flower meanings are different depending on the website, so for this entire series (which will be large), I am using anglefire.com/journal2/flowers/pcd6.html  
> I am ahead about ten chapters, so I will try to post weekly, or at least once every two weeks.


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